Meet Jay McDonald of Middleton McDonald Group

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jay McDonald.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jay. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Many things influenced my career and got to me to my role today. Born in Frankfurt, Germany to my West Point graduate dad, serving in the Army Air Corps as a pilot, and my mother, who grew up in rural Tennessee, I lost my dad to a plane crash when I was 16 months old. My mom, who was pregnant with my younger brother, moved us back to Tennessee, where I lived in Nashville through high school.

Not having a dad while growing up instilled a deep sense of responsibility in me. My mother was the most wonderful and unselfish person on earth. As role models, the image of my dad with his West Point training instilled discipline, self-control, integrity, honor, and hard work. My mother worked her entire life, and she provided me with the values of unselfishness, treating others the way they deserve to be treated, kindness, the value of education, always striving to learn and be better, giving your all, smiling, and being a giving/quality individual to everyone from all walks of life, while providing me with positive self-esteem.

Throughout childhood, I worked lots of odd jobs: selling Christmas cards, mowing lawns, having a newspaper route when I was ten years old (having to fire my first employee…my neighbor from across the street for not being able to get up consistently at 4:30 AM to deliver papers), which imbued my work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit. Attending public schools, I got a great education, while getting to know and work with folks from all backgrounds. Mutual respect of others is a key lesson from my youth, while always leaning heavily on my faith in God.

Married at eighteen, with my son born in my sophomore year at Georgia Tech, my early career was with the Citizens & Southern National Bank (now Bank of America), where I started in the mailroom, while taking a full class load at Georgia Tech. I’ve always said, “If you read someone’s mail every day for three years, you learn a lot about them!” Prior to graduation from Georgia Tech in the top 10% of my class, while working 30 hours a week, I’d been accepted to the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. I requested and received a deferment for one year, and I accepted a position with C&S, who designed a special training program for me since it knew I was going away to school in 15 months. During the short training time, I learned from a fire hose and was trained in analysis of financial statements, commercial lending, and in the basic operations of the bank, while getting to work with the senior leadership of the organization. Lots of role models to learn from, while learning about all sorts of businesses who were the bank’s clients.

Following my early years at C&S, I graduated from the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia, where I received the prestigious Samuel Forest Hyde Memorial Fellowship, awarded to the student “who of his group contributed most to the welfare of the school…and by his personality and devotion to the welfare of the School has shown the greatest promise to achieving a useful career.” Following graduation, I returned to C&S, where I spent the next ten years, rising to lead Corporate Banking for the southern U.S., Correspondent Banking, and Regulated Industries (the bank’s largest commercial lending division), while also creating industry workshops for lending and credit professionals throughout the United States in conjunction with the industry group, Robert Morris Associates. While at the bank, I also ran the Credit Department, responsible for training all commercial lenders, reviewing all major loans, and being a participant in writing the bank’s lending policy. I co-authored a book, Corporate Banking, A Practical Approach to Lending, published by the American Bankers Association and used to train lenders throughout the country. During my banking career, I estimate I gave speeches and talks to over 25,000 bankers.

My career took a unique turn, when I bought into the largest sporting goods distributor in the south, becoming not only an owner but also its President. Scratching my entrepreneurial itch, we grew this business by four-fold, ultimately selling it to Russell Corporation, an American Stock Exchange company, now owned by Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s company.

Following a short retirement at age 43, I joined The Breckenridge Group, a boutique middle-market investment banking firm, founded by folks I worked with both directly and indirectly at C&S. 18 months later I co-founded what became Middleton McDonald Group, Inc. (originally McDonald, Withers & Hughes) to provide intellectual property strategies and merger/acquisition services to middle market businesses and individuals. During the early nineties, we facilitated numerous transactions, while also working with America’s third most prolific patent holder, Jerome Lemelson.

While serving on several boards, I was asked to become a co-owner, President and CEO, of Network Communications, Inc. (NCI), the largest provider of real estate advertising in the country. We grew it by 2.5 times over seven years, expanding its major brands and websites, The Real Estate Book, Apartment Finder, Unique Homes Magazine, Mature Living Choices, and New Home Finder to be their industry’s leading publications and provider of web content. We sold NCI to Abry Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm.

As an original investor and board member of a service as a software business, Compliance Depot in Dallas, Texas, we grew it significantly from startup to a successful sale to Real Page, a New York Stock Exchange firm.

I was approached by friends and an investment group to become a turn-around CEO of their newly created sign manufacturing company, Solare Solutions, with its operations in Wiggins, Mississippi. It was a state of the art plant, losing money and failing to grow sales significantly. Its plan was to rebuild the casino and business signage on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Turning it around, we were able to grow revenues and establish profitability, exiting through a sale to a 50-year industry player from Louisiana.

After flunking retirement five times, I have been serving on multiple boards and providing leadership and executive coaching to chief executive officers, business owners, emerging leaders, and individuals since 2010. I facilitate several peer leadership groups through Vistage Worldwide, the world’s largest CEO advisory group, and I give keynotes on leadership, while maintaining a strong presence on social media. Recently, I was invited to join the prestigious Forbes Coaches Council. My objective is to help individuals to be the best they can be so they can be better leaders, have better lives, and achieve better results.

My lifelong experiences have benefited by having great role models and mentors, being a continuous learner, having insatiable curiosity, treating everyone respectfully, outworking most folks, having passion for all I’ve done, and always being an action-oriented decision maker. One of my expressions is, “Life is a contact sport!” Our relationships in life matter. We are making micro-impressions every minute of every day. It is important to have a growth mindset, to always have a positive attitude, and to persevere. Every opportunity in life has come through a referral. Our influence is contagious and creates opportunities for others if we give back.

My business is based in Atlanta; however, my clients are throughout the south.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Life is never always smooth. I’ve made mistakes, observed failures, and failed myself. I view struggles as opportunities. In the early ’70s, C&S bank and Atlanta went through a severe real estate downturn. Underwriting of loans was not prudent, and the effects of the economy were tough. Luckily, I didn’t make those loans, but I had to help us work out of them. Great lessons.

One of the struggles many of us make is not finding our niche as soon as we could. I encourage folks to take a chance on themselves. Many successes come later in life, but sometimes we don’t take a risk for fear of what we might give up instead to looking toward what we might gain. It’s important to know ourselves and to be able to look into the mirror while being brutally honest, understanding our shortcomings, and seeking to optimize our talents and strengths.

It is said that money and other people are our greatest causes of stress. I’ve dealt with some who put money over integrity, which was a struggle for me. If your values are strong, these setbacks are merely bumps in the road. We all have people we work with or deal with who may be pains in the butt or irritants. Usually, we have choices, and my choice is to move away from energy vampires toward more positive folks. My attitude toward stress is related to whether I have control over it. If I do, I make changes to eliminate or minimize the stress. If I have no control, I forget it and move forward.

Other struggles came from not making decisions quickly enough, especially when my gut told me what to do. Sometimes we let emotion and rationalization override our intelligence and logic. My advice is to bite the bullet and move forward. If it’s the wrong decision, make another one!

Another struggle which was self-inflicted was maintaining a good work/life balance. I’m probably the classic workaholic. The good thing is I’ve always loved what I do, so my career never seemed like work. It was and is a passion. Mark Twain said, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” Working long hours was a contributor to a failed marriage that lasted 39 years. I was a good father. I’m not proud of the marriage failure, but I am proud I remained friends with my former spouse, who sadly passed away from a long illness in 2015.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Middleton McDonald Group – what should we know?
Today, my business is helping leaders and their organizations be their best. Because I have been a leader in businesses my entire career and have been involved directly and observed firms, individuals, and industries spanning great differences, both good and not so good, I have a unique ability to draw upon a wealth of experiences, both personally and through others.

My experience as a serial entrepreneur, CEO, leader, advisor, board member, mentor, and business owner for my whole career gives me the experience of having “been there and done that” in multiple industries, in start-ups, in growing businesses to the next level, in family enterprises, and with publicly traded companies. Under my watch, I’ve helped successfully exit multiple businesses which I led, and in my career I’ve made and financed numerous acquisitions and divestitures, so I know how value is created. In my career, I’ve mentored and developed hundreds of leaders and entrepreneurs who’ve gone on to start, run, and lead hundreds of successful organizations. These firms were each leaders in their industries.

One of my key roles in Atlanta today is as a Vistage Chair of three leadership groups. Vistage Worldwide is the largest CEO organization in the world. Two of my groups are for CEOs, business owners, and primary decision makers. The other is for key executive leaders of businesses. All are leadership peer groups of non-competing businesses. They meet monthly for a full day with me facilitating. Two-thirds of the meetings have world-class speakers on topics of interest to the group for half the day. The meetings are hosted by the members on a rotating basis, when they make “host” presentations to their group. Issue processing, where members bring challenges, opportunities, and ideas to the group for input and discussion fill the remainder of the meeting time. The exponential value of input and experience from 12-16 fellow peers is invaluable. Everything discussed within all of my engagements is confidential, and there is great bonding among Vistage members. Individually, I have one-to-one meetings with each member every month. All members have access to the My Vistage website which connects them to over 22,000 members worldwide, as well as to thought leadership, white papers, etc. throughout the Vistage family…all confidentially. I am also a member of the prestigious, invitation only Forbes Coaches Council.

My specialty is candor and telling clients the truth. I’m a solution to being “lonely at the top.” Through asking tough questions, I can uncover the deeper, key issues and help leaders come to their own self-directed solutions. In my position, I serve many different roles including thinking partner, confidant, consultant, accountability partner, trusted advisor, contrarian, referral source, and fair and honest listener. Having lived in Atlanta for my entire professional life, I’m blessed to have many relationships in virtually all industries and professions, giving me a great network of talented resources to refer to my clients.

I’m best known for building many successful businesses and creating profitable exit strategies for our owners, including myself. My talent is developing, challenging, and positively encouraging emerging and long-time leaders to get better. I’ve managed thousands of employees and established cultures of positivity, hard work, cooperation, empowerment, accountability, and growth, while making it fun! I’m most proud of the many people with whom I’ve worked who have continued on to become outstanding leaders and whose firms have been leaders in their industries.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Any successes I’ve enjoyed are a result of the outstanding people who worked with me. No one person succeeds alone. Our organizations created cultures of professionalism, being the best in our industry, having the best people, and enjoying all that we did. Folks wanted to work for us. Developing others was embedded in all we did.

My mentors and role models are many. As mentioned, my mother was a wonderful mentor and role model, and the image of my dad and the kind of person he was influenced in a big way my view on being a man and a leader. One of my early teachers, Mrs. Irene Zurla taught me the value of education, continuously learning, hard work, and taking responsibility for your actions.

Mills B. Lane, President of the C&S bank was a fantastic person to emulate. He gave responsibility to young people early and often. He’s was an outstanding communicator, who built a culture of loyalty, positivity, accountability, innovation, and fun. Social responsibility was a major part of his business values, always giving back to the community. Wayne Watson, my mentor in the sporting goods industry, taught me the value of knowing more about your competition than they knew about themselves, attention to detail, being organized completely, and having and executing a plan coupled with excellent followup. He reinforced curiosity as a critical element of getting better. The desire to innovate led to many industries changing products and services. Elliott Galloway, founder of the Galloway School (where I served as a board member) influenced me through his mantra of teaching young people to be voracious readers and providing them self-esteem…two important lifelong traits and guidelines for both parents and leaders.

Sports throughout my life, as well as the coaches I had, inspired my competitive spirit, taught me the value of preparation, working harder than others, leaving it on the field, and being courageous enough to dig deeper when you are down. It also enabled me to learn and improve from setbacks and failure, to play fairly, and to despise losing.

A few people who were role models I never knew include Thomas Jefferson, our founding fathers, Vince Lombardi, John Wooden, and John F. Kennedy. While all had human foibles, they had moral courage, vision, unwavering high standards, creativity, intelligence, a desire to be the best, and the willingness to take risks to achieve their lofty objectives.

Contact Info:

• Address: 7910 Stratford Lane, Atlanta, GA 30350
• Website: http://www.jaymcdonald.com
• Phone: 404-310-8992
• Email: jay@jaymcdonald.com
• Instagram: jaymcdonald1234
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jay.m.mcdonald.5
• Twitter: @jaymmcdonald
• Other: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaymmcdonald/
  Jay’s Blog: http://jaymcdonald.com/straight-talk/
  

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