GEDDES - David Reed notes that most companies operate with a chief executive officer, a chief financial officer, and a chief operating officer.
As a business consultant, Reed considers himself the "chief of everything else." By that, he means he wants to be the person who can handle the business tasks that his clients aren't accustomed to dealing with, such as grant writing. As a result, his clients can instead focus on being entrepreneurs and operating their businesses.
"They do that and allow me to do the rest," says Reed, president and founder of Mirador Consulting.
Reed says he hadn't done any research to devise the self title of "chief of everything else." (Editor's note: A quick Internet search found a couple private companies using the title for a key executive.) Reed says he wasn't aware others are also using the title.
Reed, who is licensed to practice law in New York, Massachusetts, Florida, and several federal circuits, launched his consulting business in March 2009. He operates the business from his home in the town of Geddes.
Reed named his consulting business "Mirador" after a tower on a fort on San Juan Harbor in Puerto Rico.
"It provides a lookout, it's a watchtower, and that sort of encapsulated my approach to what I wanted to provide to my clients," he says.
Reed had previously served for a decade as an associate counsel for Princeton, N.J.
based Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., which included counseling the firm's operations in Puerto Rico.
Reed had also worked for Bristol-Myers in DeWitt as a law clerk during his third year of law school in 1984-85. He later rejoined the firm at the DeWitt facility as an admitted attorney in 1991.
His work for Bristol-Myers between 1991 and 1995 included advising its pharmaceutical facilities globally. He was living in Syracuse at the time.
In 1995, Bristol-Myers promoted and transferred Reed to Linvatec, its medical-device unit in Tampa, Fla. in 1995. Bristol-Myers sold Linvatec to ConMed Corp. (NASDAQ: CNMD) of Utica in late 1997.
Reed remained with Bristol-Myers following the sale and then transferred to the company's pharmaceutical headquarters in Princeton, N.J.
Returning to Syracuse
Reed, a Syracuse native, returned to the area in early 2009 and opened his own law office after a failed attempt at opening an office in Princeton, NJ. for the law firm of San Juan, PR-based Schuster Aguilo, LLP.
Schuster Aguilo is a law firm Bristol-Myers used in Puerto Rico. Reed says the New jersey office he attempted to open and operate for Schuster Aguilo office fell victim to the "economic downturn."
"I loved the idea of providing my services to individual clients who could use me rather than to a corporation to whom I was just one of a hundred attorneys," he says.
At about the same time, Reed had received an e-mail from his "high-school sweetheart," who found his name on a Westhill High School alumni website. After reconnecting, the couple fell in love, he says.
Reed declined to name the woman and would only describe her as a school teacher.
With his life and law practice back in Central New York, Reed says he remembers the meeting that inspired him to focus on business consulting.
Reed believes small-business owners view attorneys as an unintended expense and something they don't need or want unless they're being sued. For example, Reed was speaking with a friend and noticed a pile of papers on the corner of his desk. The frienddescribed the pile as the "stuff" he had yet to "get to."
And a light bulb went off," Reed says. "It's like the homework you bring home on a college break. You never do it," he added.
After looking over the pile, Reed discovered the person had failed to meet a deadline for incorporation, and it cost him an extra $50 in fees.
From that minute, I realized my value to these entrepreneurs was not as a lawyer but as somebody who could be their "chief of everything else," Reed says.
Clients and services
Reed currently works with 45 clients, most of whom are small-business owners. His local clients include Jacobsen Oriental Rugs, Inc. of Syracuse and Nature's Chemistry, a manufacturer of dietary supplements, in Skaneateles.
Mirador's clients, located across up-state New York, also include a six-person company providing manufacturing and licensing assistance to pharmaceutical manufacturers globally, a marina, an Internet search-optimization consultant, and several nonprofits, according to Reed's resume.
Some of his clients started at the South Side Innovation Center (SSIC), which is a community-based microenterprise incubator operated by the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University. The SSIC provides office space and equipment to foster the creation of new ventures and help existing businesses grow.
After their launch at the SSIC, Reed says he helps when the young businesses begin thinking about insurance, focusing on questions such as, "How do I protect myself? How do I protect my customers? How do I protect against the risks of my particular product or service?"
Reed negotiated with the SSIC to provide his services at a discounted rate, so those clients are receiving an hour free from Reed, and an hour paid for by the SSIC.
"Then if we need any more legal services or business services, we enter into another contract directly," he says.
Some of Reed's services have included reviewing contracts, and encouraging a payroll company to be proactive in providing a client all he services it believed the client needed. Reed can also provide consulting services on grant applications, permit and zoning applications, the arbitration process, and reviewing employee and supervisor handbooks.
Reed declined to disclose how much revenue Mirador Consulting generated in 2010, but his goal is to produce revenue growth of 60 percent in 2011. To this point, much of his business has been through "word of mouth" referrals, he says.
Background
Reed is a 1975 graduate of Westhill High School. He went on to earn a bachelor's degree in government from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. in 1978. Reed later earned his law degree from the Syracuse University College of Law in 1985.
Prior to his decade of work at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Reed began his law career at Hancock & Estabrook, LLP working on matters pertaining to real estate, industrial-development bonds, litigation, and taxation. His other stops in Syracuse included the law firm of Scolaro Schulman Cohen Lawler & Burstein, P.C. in 1987 and work as an assistant general counsel at Fay's Incorporated from 1988 to 1991.
After his work at Bristol-Myers, Reed worked as a senior counsel at the U.S. pharmaceutical headquarters of Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp. in West Haven, Conn.; as the chief attorney for the New Jersey site of Imclone Systems, Inc. in Branchburg, N.J.; and as the corporate secretary and senior director of legal affairs for Osteotech, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTE) in Eatontown, N.J.
Besides Mirador Consulting, Reed also conducts "Of Counsel" work for Schuster Aguilo, LLP in San Juan, P.R.
"Of counsel" means he's not an associate or a partner, but just affiliated with the office When Reed does work for the firm, it s conducted under the Schuster Aguilo name and he receives compensation through 'an arrangement" with the real firm.
He also provides in-house legal assistance to pharmaceutical clients of New York City-based Axiom Law Firm. Reed provides his service on an ad-hoc basis to clients in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.
On its website, Axiom describes itself as the first real alternative to the traditional law firm for complex legal work."
Axiom lawyers get "parachuted in" to a corporation that needs immediate assistance, Reed says.
Axiom decided there were too many companies that need temporary legal help that isn't best provided by a law firm's lawyers but instead provided by outside attorneys with in-house experience, Reed added.
Mirador Consulting Phone: (315) 414-1338
* Type of business: Business Consulting
* Year founded: 2009
* Employees: 1 (self)
* Company Owner: David Reed
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