E’Lois Thomas
President
SEEL, Detroit
Employees: 130
Revenue: $141M
Upon returning from a recent conference in Florida, E’Lois Thomas had the chance to take care of a few things at the office before starting a holiday weekend.
Thomas had spent most of the week in Jacksonville at the annual meeting of the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance (SEEA), for which she serves on the board of directors. Although attendees stayed at an oceanside resort, Thomas never went into the water — but she did enjoy the view.
“It’s definitely a town that I will visit again,” Thomas says in her merry, emphatic way.
After years in corporate accounting led her to become vice president of finance at MCL Jasco Inc. in Detroit, Thomas joined its subsidiary, SEEL — Solutions for Energy Efficient Logistics — as chief administrative officer.
She served for a decade until 2021, when she became SEEL’s president.
The company shares quarters with MCL Jasco at 7140 W. Fort St., a repurposed building that used to house the Detroit Police Department’s 8th Precinct. As president, she oversees SEEL’s energy-management programs, with concentrations in finance, IT, and administrative support.
The company is a nationally certified minority business enterprise that operates various channels of sustainability solutions. Besides implementing energy management strategies for small businesses, SEEL does workforce development and even offers grant-writing coaching for program applicants.
“My role is to set the vision to drive strategy and ensure execution,” Thomas says. “I lead with a real focus on growth, operational excellence, and community impact.”
She explains that she works to build strong relationships with SEEL’s utility clients and focuses on developing new market opportunities. Beyond the performance metrics, though, is a “deeper mission” of equity and access.
“That’s what I do on a day-to-day basis,” she says. “I also call myself a culture-keeper. I call myself that because I’m always trying to take leadership, trying to support our team’s development, and just ensuring that our values show up every day.”
The path Thomas followed to reach her present seat is marked by a string of educational attainments that started during her youth on Detroit’s east side, when she joined the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program to nurture her avid embrace of math and science.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Detroit Mercy and an MBA in management from Walsh College in Troy, she had an eye-opening experience when she became a member of the American Association of Blacks in Energy.
“I was able to see that it was OK to allow yourself to lead from your (geographic) area,” Thomas says. “Sometimes that’s the most difficult thing, your region, and (getting) people (to accept) you where energy isn’t as hot.”
When she first joined SEEL, she sought a Green Energy Management certificate from San Diego State University.
“Energy was very prevalent on the West Coast, and it wasn’t that prevalent or known in the Midwest,” Thomas says. “I wanted a program where I could learn about the importance of energy. I was so enamored with solar panels and windmills and all of the things that they (Californians) had.”
Another step, completed in 2017 after a seven-year effort, was earning a Ph.D. from North Central University in Minneapolis. As part of her dissertation, Thomas conducted what she calls “a qualitative multiple-case study” on innovation and revenue streams in small and medium enterprises, looking for applications at MCL Jasco and SEEL.
“Part of my research in my published work is around making sure your human capital, your investment, and your team is always a priority,” she says.
A point of pride is starting SEEL’s learning institute and offering training as a community asset.
“We do grant-writing training within our team. We also do building-science training for the BPI (Building Performance Institute) certification, which is the accreditation needed within the energy space.”
Looking back, it seemed to Thomas as though her Ph.D. would represent the end of formal learning, but becoming president of SEEL caused her to think again and look for a program to help improve her strategizing and decision-making skills. She followed through with a certificate from the Women’s Leadership Program at the Yale School of Management in 2021.
Additional inspiration comes from a local source: Joyce Hayes Giles. Besides knowing and admiring Giles — the former senior vice president of DTE Energy — Thomas read the book, “The Energy Within Us: An Illuminating Perspective from Five Trailblazers,” which Giles co-authored.
“What I learned in watching her is that you can bring femininity into the boardroom, and that’s OK. You can be your true authentic self, and that’s OK.”
Devoted to public service, Thomas relishes working with youngsters. She is vice chair of Detroit PAL and belongs to the boards of Franklin Wright Settlements and Results Mentoring, the latter of which her husband, Charles Thomas Jr., is the founder and CEO.
She also became a member of the Detroit Athletic Club in 2021, and works with a community outreach subcommittee there.
“It’s so funny,” she says. “The DAC supports a couple of schools within the Detroit Public School system, and what makes it so meaningful for me is those two schools are Nolan Middle School and Pershing High School, and both are schools that I went to.
“Walking those halls as a student, I never imagined I’d return years later to serve and give back. So that’s very exciting work for me.”
