Adair Taulbee
Founder, Adair & Co
Hometown
Fort Worth, TX — born & raised
Serves
North Texas & the greater Fort Worth area
Experience
25+ years across operations & technology
Path
Operator → Technologist → Entrepreneur → Advisor
Certifications
Microsoft Certified · ITIL Certified
How do you make a growing organization actually work?
That question has followed me through 25+ years at the intersection of business operations and technology — from technical support, through infrastructure and helpdesk leadership, application support, product management, enterprise IT and ITIL process implementation, and technology leadership, into operations, consulting, entrepreneurship, AI, and cybersecurity. Those aren't disconnected résumé chapters. They're the same question asked from a different seat every time.
I've also founded and co-founded businesses myself — including a fintech SaaS company — which means I've personally worn the sales, delivery, operations, finance, technology, marketing, customer service, hiring, and prioritization hats. That's not theoretical experience. It's what lets me give you a straight answer about cost, timing, capacity, complexity, and competing priorities, because I've had to weigh those same trade-offs with my own money and my own team.
My deep experience spans tax and accounting software and publications, home building, third-party logistics, fintech SaaS, IT service providers and MSPs, and home care — with broader advisory exposure to other owner-led service businesses. The industries change. The patterns often don't: knowledge trapped in people's heads, broken handoffs, unclear ownership, manual work, underused technology, inconsistent execution, and an owner acting as the connective tissue holding it all together.
Every business is now a technology business to some degree, and AI accelerates what's possible — but it doesn't replace the need for good people, process, systems, and traditional technology done well. My approach is to leverage AI where work is repeatable and doesn't require human judgment, freeing people for the work where relationships, expertise, and judgment matter most. The goal is putting the work in the right place, whether that's a person, a process, existing technology, automation, or AI.
I grew up in Fort Worth with a father who spent his career on the flight line — starting at General Dynamics and retiring from what had by then become Lockheed Martin. Growing up around that world, flight terminology became part of how I think, which is probably why Takeoff resonates as the standard for where I like to take businesses: the work isn't done until there's real operational lift.
Today that means helping growing businesses in North Texas and beyond get their operations, systems, technology, and AI actually working together — using AI extensively in our own operation, which means we implement what we live inside daily, not what we theorize about.