The past year has seen Adams Brown transition to a new managing partner and grow its local office and regional footprint.
Add expanded technology services to the list for one of Wichita's largest CPA firms.
Earlier this year, Adams Brown acquired locally based The Technology Specialist Inc. and formed Adams Brown Technology Specialists, which offers managed information technology and cybersecurity solutions.
The move ties into the company's strategy to provide clients with services stretching beyond the accounting and financial realm.
Chris Schneider, CEO of the new wholly-owned subsidiary, said The Technology Specialist — founded in 2007 by Shayne Yonce — fit Adams Brown well in multiple ways.
Schneider said that when discussions around an acquisition started late last year, The Technology Specialist culture jumped out, not just its skills and experience in serving companies in the dental industry, among other sectors.
"You saw how much they cared," Schneider said. "You saw the energy within that team and their main focus was our main focus. And that was, I think, the key piece to it all — how customer-centric they were and what we were trying to do."
Yonce, who had acquired companies as he built The Technology Specialist, said he also saw positive indicators that a deal could work as initial conversations progressed.
Now the chief experience officer at Adams Brown Technology Specialists, Yonce said Adams Brown wanting to retain The Technology Specialist team was big.
"Everybody had a place, and it was very important to me that this was an opportunity for everybody that came along with me and helped us get our business to where it is now," said Yonce, whose firm was No. 14 on the WBJ's 2022 list of largest IT services companies in the Wichita area. "When I knew that it was going to be a safe place for everyone — and that it was going to be a win-win — then we were able to march forward with confidence."
While not all The Technology Specialist employees opted to stay, 13 did, according to Adams Brown. The Adams Brown Technology Specialists team has since grown to 21.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Technology Specialist's 1823 S. Eisenhower location continues to be utilized by the newly created entity.
Schneider said since the acquisition finalized, the focus has been on client communication and helping add further organization, processes and structure.
"It wasn't just a come in and let's cut a bunch of stuff, change and make it not resemble what Shayne had already built," he said. "We were looking at where they're at and then putting together a roadmap for improvement."
Adams Brown, which emphasizes its work with small businesses, said it's seen an increase in need for cybersecurity support for their clients that could be significantly harmed by the national average $200,000 hit a cyberattack can level.
Schneider said when he joined Adams Brown in early 2022, the firm did some work in cybersecurity but "hadn't built out the team yet to offer any services."
"This was our way to quickly jump into that rather than build all of that out ourselves, which we had planned to do at some point," he said. "We decided an acquisition might be better. So to that point, it was bringing more technical knowledge, more resources to the table to help us do that quickly."
The growth in technology and cybersecurity services comes during a busy year for Adams Brown, which is up to more than 350 team members and has 12 locations across Kansas and Arkansas.
It's named a new managing partner, Ben Wilson, added a Little Rock, Ark., office, and is expanding its downtown Wichita offices at 358 N. Main.
The deal also marks a new chapter for Yonce, who had originally started the company in his garage 16 years ago.
He called joining Adams Brown a "rich blessing" and that it's built upon what his team had already been doing.
"We're just able to provide an even higher quality service now than before, because of the enhanced resources that have been made available," Yonce said. "Now we're able... to increase bandwidth and capacity to reach into some larger markets that we weren't able to reach into before."
