Thomas Cornell | When Thomas left His full-time position at KARE Television after nearly 18 years, he wanted to say goodbye in a unique way. Using a palm-corder, GoPro cameras, his love of bicycling and his off-beat sense of humor, he created this online sayonara for his former co-workers.
KARE 11 News | As a freelance photojournalist, Thomas often works for KARE 11 television (NBC) in the Twin Cities. He’s also an advocate for organ donation/transplantation. Recently he worked on this piece for KARE11 News at 10.
Thomas has had the honor to work with some of the industries most talented journalists like Boyd Huppert. This piece went from shoot to location edit to live-shot in about 3 hours.
He also worked with Jay Olstad on this emotional piece about a young boy struggling with illness who gets a special day.
On election day Thomas traveled to Winona, MN with Lindsey Seivert to tell the story of this 97 year old newly naturalized citizen who voted in her first election.
For Veteran’s Day 2014, Thomas teamed up with Rena Sarigianopoulos to tell the story of the Ritters. He was a combat wounded Marine and she was a Navy nurse. 69 years later, they’re still married and appreciate the war for helping them find each other.
The future for SharkBait Productions is wide open! In addition to video production, Thomas enjoys SCUBA diving with individuals with adaptive needs. He received training as an HSA (Handicapped SCUBA Association) instructor at A1 Scuba in Denver. He returned from Denver with the idea to build a similar program here in Minnesota. Thanks to several dedicated and patient people, that program has taken root and “Try Scuba” is now a regular event at the Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute in Golden Valley, MN.
In June of 2016, the FREE-DAPTIVE crew took 2 divers with paraplegia to Cozumel. Here’s a taste!
In the years since his training, he’s traveled with A1 to Cozumel and Cayman Brac to dive as a buddy with several inspiring individuals with disabilities. Thanks to Scott Taylor of A1 for shooting the following with Thomas’ GoPro.