Mr. Thomson is an auto parts dealer with a soft spot for Veterans. In 2006, while browsing on eBay for items for his auto parts business, he discovered a First World War medal of a soldier from a nearby town. Mr. Thomson bought the medal and turned it over to his town museum. Since then, Mr. Thomson spends much of his spare time surfing the Internet trying to locate other Canadian service medals which he, in turn, returns to family members, museums, or a Veterans' organization should the family members not be found. To date, Mr. Thomson has successfully returned the medals of close to 250 Canadian Veterans to families or communities. He has bid and paid for medals out of his own pocket to ensure their safe return to family. In many newspaper articles, he has asked that people contact him should they come across medals for sale on the Internet. He also encourages people to donate their bids to help him win auctions and return the medals to family. When he locates a Canadian military medal up for sale on the on-line auction, Mr. Thomson turns to the digitized records of Veterans Affairs, Library and Archives of Canada and gets help from a North Bay Ontario genealogist and local media to locate the soldier's descendants or hometown.