Updated June 17, 2024: Tom McKenna is the former Chief Operating Officer of Thorne.

When I think of Thorne, I think of trust. Trust in our products, our processes, and – most importantly – our people. As Thorne’s Chief Operating Officer, I strive every day to ensure that the name Thorne is synonymous with safe, effective, and trusted nutritional supplements.

Why is trust so important to us? It comes down to two words: friends and family. 

What that means is that we won’t let any finished supplement leave our manufacturing campus that we wouldn’t give to either our closest friends or our family. It all comes down to people. 

For instance, the first people who experience the benefits of Thorne’s supplements are Thorne employees – myself included. We support this effort by making sure every employee receives a monthly stipend to use on their choice of Thorne supplements from day one.

Building a trusted nutritional supplement company demands dedicated and passionate employees, and our employees are what make Thorne the dynamic company it is. Thorne’s success – past, present, and future – is built on how we work together, and it all starts with the employees behind our supplements.

This year marks Thorne’s 40th anniversary and the many milestones we have reached along our journey of growth, expansion, and evolution. We have gone through many eras, faced many challenges, and initiated many changes. But our employees, their contributions, and their passion for the brand and what we do are the driving force behind making Thorne the supplement manufacturer you know today.

My journey to Thorne

I was introduced to Paul Jacobson, the former CEO of Thorne, in 2008, after I had left a 20-plus year career with Bristol Myers Squibb.

At the time, Paul was running a start-up called Diversified Natural Products (DNP), and he was in the early stages of looking to partner with a supplement manufacturer that believed in high-quality standards with ingredients backed by science. This approach was something that really resonated with me, and it highlighted a real gap in the nutritional supplement space. Paul’s vision convinced me, and I signed on.

In those first days, we worked out of hotel lobbies, in our cars, and anywhere else we could find a seat. We even worked on the street while we were waiting to meet with people. A proof point to our scrappiness at the time: Our core business strategy was developed on the back of a big manila envelope. 

Our goal was to challenge the public’s perceptions of nutritional supplements and to raise the bar on the industry’s processes around supplement manufacturing. We wanted to bring nutritional supplements to market with the same manufacturing and quality standards as pharmaceutical products. 

To do that, we set out to find a supplement company that not only produced high-end nutritional supplements but also already had a stellar reputation among health-care practitioners and wellness professionals.

That’s what led us to a small company called Thorne Research in Sandpoint, Idaho. At the time, Thorne had deep roots among naturopathic doctors, chiropractors, and acupuncturists. But Thorne faced a lot of competition from other supplement manufacturers for this customer base, and the market was highly saturated. But we knew Thorne had the potential to position itself differently.

Paul and I recognized that no one in the supplement industry was promoting to medical doctors or nurse practitioners. These health-care professionals became our new target market. We could build on Thorne’s incredible foundation among naturopathic doctors to tap into this new market – what we called our “blue sky” – and grow Thorne’s revenue base by expanding into an untapped marketplace. 

This was going to be a huge challenge for us, but we had a strategy in place that we believed in. How? We focused on the science behind the supplements, from formulation and marketing to clinical studies and professional education. This became the cornerstone from which Thorne grew and became what it is today.

With our strategy solidified, the obstacle became to convince Thorne’s founder, Al Czap, that our idea and strategy was worthy of his consideration. And Al needed convincing. 

First, Paul and I had to assure Al that we were the right people for the job. 

Second, we had to prove that we would take the company in a direction that honored its founding principles while adding value in a way that other suitors wouldn’t. 

In June 2010, after a lengthy courtship with Al in which we gained his trust in our vision, we took Thorne into a new era, with Paul as CEO and me as COO.

And I’d like to say, “the rest is history,” but for us, a new era of Thorne was just beginning, one that honored where we’d been and propelled us toward many new chapters ahead.

Thorne through the years

The first era: “Growth” (1984-2010) – This era, prior to Paul and me coming in, represents Thorne building its brand under Al Czap’s leadership. Thorne began with only 25 employees in Seattle, Washington, and underwent its first major expansion in 1990, when it moved to Sandpoint, Idaho. From the start, the company’s efforts focused on three objectives: building a product portfolio, establishing a heritage of quality and purity, and earning recognition in the market.

The second era: “Expansion” (2010-2015) – By the time Paul and I stepped in, as CEO and COO, Thorne already had a reputation in the nutritional supplement industry, but we wanted to make Thorne not just a leader in the industry, but the leader. We expanded our footprint in the broader scientific community. This era was a transitional one, focused on turning our strategy into reality by growing the professional customer base and owning that medical market. 

In a short amount of time, we re-invented our product line to bring more new supplements to the market than our competitors. To enhance our credibility further, we also pushed for third-party validation and certification of our campus and processes from both NSF International, which propagated our sports and performance market, and Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, widely recognized as the toughest regulatory agency in the world. We also entered into clinical studies with internationally recognized institutions like Mayo Clinic.

The third era: “Evolution” (2015-present) – Thorne’s market growth and digital expansion from 2010 onward made us realize we were fast outgrowing our capacity in Sandpoint, Idaho. This led to our search for a new home, eventually settling on a new campus in Summerville, South Carolina, where we have rooted ourselves, and expanded our size and capabilities to account for future eras of Thorne. 

This current era is driven by technology and e-commerce. We launched Thorne’s online direct-to-consumer sales platforms in 2018. This digital evolution has allowed us to capitalize on new technologies and revolutionize online dispensing. We have transformed the supplement marketplace with Thorne Health Intelligence, an artificial intelligence-enabled platform that helps us deliver tailored recommendations based on an individual’s health profile and results from our innovative at-home health test kits.

Products, processes, people

Through every era of growth, our products and processes are two critical elements that set Thorne apart, but the number one thing that sets Thorne apart is our people. Thorne’s culture is led by operational excellence. We make sure that we do our best each day and hold ourselves to high standards. 

If I have time for only one thing a day, it’s taking care of our people. Since day one, our top priority has always been making sure that we have the right team in our corner – ensuring they have the right tools to perform their duties and develop themselves professionally. The more a person is tenured, the more they understand what they're doing and the more they care about their work. If you take care of your people, everything else takes care of itself. All of this leads back to our supplements and our processes: They are all led, implemented, and improved on by the employees who have helped build and maintain the excellence of our brand.

The next chapter

So, what’s next for Thorne? What does our operation look like in 5 years, in 10 years? The answer is “bigger and better.” We’re looking to further establish ourselves as the leader in personalized health and wellness through our diagnostic tests and nutritional supplements. We have already outgrown our first facility in South Carolina and built a second, larger facility next door. We are continuing to invest in researching and developing new supplements, marketing our products, and sharing our story as we continue to move into the future. 

As we celebrate Thorne’s 40th anniversary, we look back on the road that led us here today. From selling vitamin C out of a garage in Seattle, Washington, to building a trusted brand in Sandpoint, Idaho, to creating a new future of scientific wellness in Summerville, South Carolina, it's been quite the journey, and we are all excited to see what comes next.