James MagazineJames_July-August_2026_web - Flipbook - Page 43
Building More Than Businesses
John Adams is an executive and entrepreneur with more than three decades
of leadership experience building and transforming various companies. In
2025 he was named CEO of Grizzly MEP and is tasked to lead its national
expansion strategy and help build a network of premier mechanical, electrical
and plumbing providers throughout the country.
P
rior to joining
Grizzly MEP,
Adams served
as CEO of Altus Fire & Life
Safety, where
he grew the
platform and
led its sale from one private equity
owner to another. Previously, he
was CEO of Mission Secure, an
OT cybersecurity firm, where he
repositioned the company, built a
direct and channel sales organization, and drove significant recurring revenue growth. Earlier, John
served as chairman and CEO of
Waratek. He headed its turnaround
to a successful exit and then
co-founded SecurAmerica, which
he expanded from startup to a
major industry leader before its
eventual sale to Allied Universal.
He holds a B.S. in Accounting
from Florida Southern College and
an MBA in Health Services Management from Webster University,
and has served on the boards of
the YMCA, United Way, the Buckhead Club and BENS.
When Adams talks about
building companies, he rarely starts
with numbers. Instead, he talks
about people. He talks about entrepreneurs willing to risk everything
to build a business. He talks about
culture. About preserving the DNA
of founder-led companies. About
empowering teams rather than
replacing them. And perhaps most
importantly, he talks about doing
things the right way.
That philosophy sits at the
center of Adams’ vision as CEO
of Grizzly MEP, a rapidly growing
commercial mechanical, electrical
and plumbing platform headquartered in Atlanta. While the company itself is relatively new, Adams is
anything but a newcomer when it
comes to building businesses.
Over the course of his career,
Adams has led and scaled companies in industries ranging from
physical security and cybersecurity to fire and life safety systems.
His track record of creating successful organizations ultimately
led Garnett Station Partners, a
private equity firm, to recruit him
to lead Grizzly’s expansion.
Now Adams is returning to
what he calls his industrial roots.
“We are building a commercial
HVAC, electrical and plumbing
platform,” Adams said. “What
attracted me was the size of the
opportunity and the ability to help
great founder-led businesses unlock growth.”
RETURNING TO ROOTS
According to Adams, Grizzly
focuses heavily on commercial
projects— office buildings, hospitals, schools, universities, manufacturing facilities and large-scale
business operations. Rather than
manufacturing equipment, the
company designs, installs, services
and maintains critical systems that
businesses rely on every day.
Those systems, Adams says, have
become more important than many
people realize.
“If an HVAC system goes down
in a hospital or a corporate campus,
it’s not discretionary,” Adams said.
“What we do is essential.”
That necessity is one reason
Adams sees enormous opportunity
in the commercial MEP market. For
years, he says, private equity investors focused heavily on residential
HVAC and plumbing businesses.
Commercial markets, with larger
and more complex projects, were
often viewed as riskier territory.
That thinking is changing, he says.
“There’s a tremendous amount of
runway in this space,” Adams said.
“People are realizing these are critical services that businesses simply
can’t operate without.”
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