Pete Thornton
Dana Elcar

Phone: 536614

MacGyver's boss and best friend, Pete Thornton worked for many years as an operative of the Department of External Services. It was during this time that he met MacGyver while tracking the international assassin Murdoc, and convinced MacGyver to work part time for the DXS. Seven years later, Pete took the position of Director of Operations at the Phoenix Foundation, which he now holds.

Pete’s devotion to his work has cost him his marriage and has driven a wedge between him and his only child Michael, who has always resented that Pete was never around when he was growing up.  Pete tried to make amends for this by letting Michael work alongside him at the Phoenix Foundation. Unfortunately, Michael's overwhelming resentment tempted him to betray Pete by stealing top-secret information for a crime ring. After getting caught red-handed by both Pete and MacGyver, Michael was forced to expose the rest of the co-conspirators. To this day, Pete and Michael are still trying to reconcile their differences.

Pete has a love for the game of golf, even though he doesn’t get much time to play it due to his work-a-holic nature. Over the years MacGyver has also be able to introduce Pete to the therapeutic qualities of fishing and “getting away from it all”.

In the sixth season of the show, Pete began to show symptoms of glaucoma, a degenerative condition of the eyes that causes the victim to lose his sight. Despite an operation to try and save his eyesight, he was legally blind in the seventh season, although he was still able to read printed text with the help of special computer equipment.