Complaint Review: Tammy James

It is extremely unfortunate that Debra Thompson, an outstanding educator and entrpreneur for over 35 years, has to defend herself against the slander and defamation of character from the likes of a Tammy James.  We can only hope that people are smart enough to recognize a vindictive liar when they see one.  According to court records, Executive Director of GenTech, Debra Thompson, is not the only person nor company Tammy James has attempted to manipulate and rip off reputations with fabricated stories and refusal to accept responsbility for her own actions.  At least three othr companies have been victims of the alleged "Dr. James". It is shameful that Thompson has had to defend her reputation due to James' angry lies because James brought her son to class late and tried to blame it on Thompson changing class times.  The strongest evidence that James was lying was the refusal of her own credit card company, Chase, to issue a refund to James based upon the 40 pages of documentation presented by Debra Thompson and GenTech.  Additionally, the State of Illinois Office of the Attorney General, the City of Chicago Bureau of Finance, the Better Business Bureau, and two other agencies denied James' claims and found absolutely no wrong doing on the part of Debra Thompson nor GenTech.  GenTech has been lauded for the outstanding programming it has offered youth, teens, and adults for almost a decade.  One parent recently wrote to Thompson: "You ran an absolutely amazing program. There are many programs out there, but this was run like a well oiled machine. The focus was on the children learning according to their abilities in a serious, studious and no nonsense manner, but also having fun and enjoying what they were doing.  It is not often that you can find that balance in this type of camp, but you did it. I must say the caliber of engineers that you were able to obtain to teach this camp was outstanding. MIT, Vassar, top of the field engineering firms in both aero dynamics and robotic engineering.The confidence alone that My Child obtained from being in this camp, is priceless. He is now a freshman in high school. He is in the robotics club which just built a robot that will be competing at UIC this April with schools from around the world. And because he was so dedicated in this endeavor, he is going to be one of the drivers. He also is working with his teacher in starting a coding club with the goal of having coding classes if the interest is great enough. His ultimate goal is to attend MIT and become a robotic medical engineer making limbs and body parts for people that work through brain waves.  All this I attribute to your camp. That year was a tough year for My Child as his Father and I divorced, he became somewhat introverted and was questioning many aspects of his life that he thought was a given before. My mother told me about this camp, as you reached out to the Office of Catholic Schools. I knew this would be a great experience for My Child and would bring out his natural abilities that he, at this point in his life, lost sight of. We come from a family of engineers. My father is an engineer, two of his brothers were engineers, out of the 46 first cousins, half are some type of engineer, the other half, doctors. There are a handful, myself included that chose the humanities instead! The first day at camp he was bumped up to the high school level because he finished the project that was supposed to take two weeks, that day. The excitement in his voice and face that had disappeared for awhile, came back. He would come home everyday and tell me that he could not wait to go back the next day! The fact that he was a seventh grader, working with High school children and even assisting some of them brought back his confidence in himself and his abilities. Working with actual engineers that were not family and the caliber of those engineers, re-ignited the passion and confidence within himself and I believe, cemented the goals that he is striving to achieve now and the future.  For this I am forever grateful and sincerely hope that you are able to bring forth this type of experience to other children."  All the best, A Parent.  Again, it is extremely unfortunate that Thompson has to defend herself against such slander and defamation of character.  We can only hope that people are smart enough to recognize a vindictive liar when they see one.