Paul Thompson has been a member of the Rotary Club of Hershey for the past 15 years. Paul served on the District Global Grant Scholarship committee, President of the Hershey Rotary Club a member of the Board of the Hershey Club, and has been involved with Rotary Youth Exchange.
           
Paul and his Rotarian wife Maria have four grown children who participated with them in various Rotary projects. Two of their children were outbound youth exchange students and as a family they hosted eleven inbound youth exchange students.
           
Paul’s academic degrees include a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Security Studies, a Doctorate and a Master of Jurisprudence, and a Doctorate of Law and Policy. He has travelled to six continents, lived in several nations for extended periods of time, and he is conversant in German, French, and Turkish.
           
In his professional career, Paul was a Naval officer for 25 years. He was assigned to operational assignments as a line officer on Amphibious deployment in the Mediterranean and Atlantic; as an attached in the U.S. Embassy in Turkey; as a JAGC officer in trial and appellate military justice positions; and in front-office policy assignments as Chief counsel to the Commander of Atlantic Naval Air Force and to the Chief of Naval Operations, and as an Executive Assistant to three successive National Security Advisors, while a staff member at the National Security Council.
           
Following his career in the Navy, Paul turned to Academic pursuits. He served for over a decade as a Professor of Law and National Security at the National War College in Washington, and the for the past decade as Associate Professor of Homeland Security at Penn State University.