Josh Carter  

Michael J. Thomas is a past Tribal Council Chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, and a current Tribal community-elected Board Member for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.  

Mr. Thomas also descends from, and belongs to, the Tribal communities of the Eastern Pequot Tribe of CT and the Narragansett Tribe in R.I. where he was raised as a child. 

A lifelong traditional singer, Mr. Thomas was the leader and one of four founding members of the Native American Music Award-winning & Grammy-nominated traditional Inter-Tribal drum group known as the Mystic River Singers. He is currently a mentor for traditional singers from multiple Tribes in the northeastern U.S. 

Mr. Thomas, first elected to the Tribal Council in 1994, remains the youngest Mashantucket Pequot person ever to be elected to the Tribe’s governing body and is a current member of the Mashantucket Pequot Elders Council. 

Before being elected, his Tribal government roles included MPTN Environmental Health Director and MPTN Natural Resource Protection Director in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Mr. Thomas was responsible for the development and operating oversight of the waste water and water systems that still serve the Pequot Tribal community, government & economy today. 

Mr. Thomas is a past Chairman of the MPTN Historic & Cultural Preservation Committee and of the Tribe’s Pow-Wow Committee. He has also served upon many nonprofit Boards of Directors outside of Mashantucket including boards for the North American Indigenous Games, CT Public Television, Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, the UConn Foundation and the Native American Fish & Wildlife Foundation. 

Mr. Thomas, son of the late former Tribal Council Secretary-Treasurer Ruth Thomas, is the father of 8 children, the eldest child among 9 siblings and the first-born grandchild of the late Tribal leader Dr. Phyllis Monroe-Waite who was first elected to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council in the 1970’s.