In the blazing hot sun on Sunday afternoon, GLAAD’s acting president Mike Thompson was confident and cool as he addressed hundreds of guests at his organization’s annual Top Chef Invasion event.

“It’s really no secret about the challenges and the changes that GLAAD has been through in the last month or so,” Thompson said as attendees sipped cocktails and munched on gourmet hors d’œuvres. “At times, it felt like I was in one of the most headed ‘Quickfire’ challenges in Top Chef history. You know, the ones when [host] Padma [Lakshmi] comes in and she gives you this list of ingredients … and says, ‘Do something with these ingredients.’ It’s kind of felt like that at times over the last six weeks. But let me tell you, just like these talented top chefs would produce the most amazing dishes from the most random ingredients, that’s exactly what we’re doing at this time at GLAAD.”

The challenges he’s referring to are former GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios stepping down in June after 23 months on the job because of fallout over a statement he had released supporting the merger of telecom giants AT&T and T-Mobile. AT&T had donated $50,000 to the LGBT rights organization.

Thompson, then GLAAD’s chief operating officer, was asked to take over as acting president. A search committee and the criteria for a permanent replacement for Barrios has not yet been formed. In an interview with Greg In Hollywood before his speech, Thompson would not say whether he will be a candidate for the job.

“I love my job at GLAAD and consider it such a privilege to step into this acting president role,” he said. “It’s an honor to be sitting in this seat today.”

Whoever ends up as president, Thompson said it’s important to continue to do the work that GLAAD began  doing 25 years ago when the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation was formed in response to a series of articles in the New York Post with defamatory and sensational coverage of the AIDS epidemic.

“What is really important for us to focus on, even in the midst of the conversation over the last month, is the important work of GLAAD which never really ceased,” he said. “Our challenge now is to refocus the conversation back on the important mission-related work that we’re doing.”

The Top Chef benefit was taking place the same day as same-sex couples began getting married in New York and Thompson pointed out that GLAAD has “had people on the ground since marriage equality actually passed the legislature. We’ve got great work happening in the field across the country doing similar work that happened in New York.”

“Even during times of transition like this, it’s about focusing the conversation on the mission work of GLAAD and the rest will kind of fade into the background because it’s really about advancing the work toward full equality,” he added. “… I think people are going to be impressed with what we’re doing and the conversation’s going to change to the important mission work that we do.”

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