My journey as an advocate for privately held businesses began in my small hometown of Springfield Vermont in the early 1970’s. The manufacturing industry was starting to decline due to market conditions and many owners were not prepared nor able to sell. Family legacies were reduced to pennies on the dollar, entire plants closed – it was devastating. This not only affected the families and workers of the closed plants, it affected entire communities and ultimately the economy of Vermont. The problem worsened over the next decade.It was about this time, in the early 80’s, that I – a Vermonter and a relentless meddler – headed from Williams College off to M.I.T., where I realized the “Springfield Problem” is a national one. All over the U.S., businesses were failing to transfer and the trickle-down effect would eventually be catastrophic to our national economy. The wheels began to turn.During my M.I.T. stint, I developed the algorithms for CoreValue Research and launched a consulting business, The Chairman’s View. My vision was and is to this day to help business owners and CEOs build valuable, sustainable and transferable businesses that are treated like assets and the decisions made about the future of those companies are based on value rather than profit.After four startups as CEO and CFO, two turnarounds, and making the INC 500, I formed CoreValue Software - helping business owners identify the operational gaps in their business and determine their true enterprise value based on 18 economic drivers. In the past year we’ve launched “evergreen” - the first fully automated “business wealth planning system” for Financial Advisors based on the CoreValue Software algorithms CoreValue Research has been at the forefront of private business research including leading teams to create the first comprehensive set of Private Business Standards, Normalized Industry Trading Ranges for private businesses, and industry specific algorithms.