Adam’s entrepreneurial spirit first emerged in grade school when he noticed that students would fail pop quizzes because they didn’t have a number 2 pencil. He saw this opportunity and started selling pencils to classmates. As the years passed, he graduated to selling canned soft drinks and 5.25” floppy disks as well. At 15 he started his first venture selling software for the Apple IIgs. Moving on to selling used computer equipment through high school he stopped to attend college. Once out he had the opportunity to open a computer store only to learn a valuable lesson. Failure is a much better teacher than success.

Becoming the employee, he wishes he could have hired

Once Adam emerged from a failed business venture he sat with his father, John, and stepped through what went right and more importantly what went wrong. A critical point was the fact that Adam’s employees were unreliable, talented people who weren’t committed to making the business a success. With this newfound wisdom he set out to become the employee he wishes he could have hired and started as an entry level technician at a computer rental firm. In two weeks, he was promoted to mid-level and not long after that he was a senior engineer. He moved on to a hospitality help desk starting as a senior engineer and finishing his journey there as a Network Manager. Moving to a credit counseling business next he became an IT Manager handling a staff, building a new call center, and managing facilities, telecom and computer systems.

Becoming a consultant

With a family growing Adam moved into the contracting world, first at Lockheed Martin and then Booz Allen Hamilton. With John as Adam’s mentor, he began applying the principles of strategic planning against complex interconnected systems and teams. Growing from a team lead and engineer to project manager he proved himself time and time again as a leader in the workspace.

Myrna Associates

In 2021 Adam’s mother passed and John was diagnosed with cancer a week later. John decided to retool the business so that it could continue after his passing. Adam worked with him to streamline processes and learn the business. On Sept. 9th, 2023, John passed away and Adam stepped into the role to take Myrna Associates to the next generation.

The Way Forward

The future leaves muddy footprints in the present. This was one of John’s favorite sayings. Adam knows he cannot fill John’s shoes, but he can follow in John’s footsteps. The operations of the business will change and evolve but the core of the strategic planning process will remain consistent as will Myrna Associates commitment to generate value to help companies find their future turning vision into reality.

Myrna Associates

On July 4, 1991, John, and his life-long partner –and wife– Mary, formed Myrna Associates, dedicated to improving the competitiveness of America’s small businesses. Our experiences have given us a passionate belief in the power of strategic planning to generate immediate bottom-line results, especially during a growth spurt, turnaround, or other transitions. We’ve distilled what we’ve learned from leading organizations over 20 years into a formal program tailored for the small to medium-sized organization. Over a quarter of a century of continuous improvement has created a process that accomplishes more in a two-day team-planning meeting than in the two weeks required by traditional “big company” methods. Even organizations in crisis can find two days to invest in planning for success.

The Myrna Strategic Planning Process™ – https//myrna.com