Peter W. Thomas is a principal in the Washington D.C. law firm of Powers, Pyles, Sutter & Verville, P.C. Mr. Thomas has a federal law and legislative practice in the areas of health care and disability policy, managed care, Medicare coverage and reimbursement policy, and rehabilitation research appropriations. Mr. Thomas recently served on the President's Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry where he chaired the Subcommittee on Consumer Rights, Protections and Responsibilities, the Subcommittee that developed the Patient's Bill of Rights. He currently serves on the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, formerly the Agency for Health Care Policy, Research and Evaluation of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He also was a member of the Quality Forum Planning Committee, a public-private partnership tasked with creating the structure for the National Forum for Health Care Quality, which focuses on health care quality improvement. Mr. Thomas recently completed a 5-year position on the National Advisory Board for the Center on Medical Rehabilitation Research at the National Institutes of Health.

Mr. Thomas served as Co-Chair of the Health Task Force of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD), a Washington-based working coalition of over 100 national disability-related organizations, from 1994 to 1998. He is also a board member of two nonprofit organizations, Physicians Against Land Mines and the Center on Disability and Health. He has personal experience with physical disability and is the co-author of an employment guidebook published in March 1993 entitled, The Americans with Disabilities Act: A Guidebook for Management and People with Disabilities. Mr. Thomas is a member of both the New York State and the District of Columbia Bars and holds a bachelor's degree from Boston College and a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.