In Loving Memory
John William Myrna, born April 22, 1945, in Romulus, New York, died at his home in Athens, Georgia, on September 9, 2023, after a prolonged battle with metastatic bone and prostate cancer.
John was always an intelligent, inquisitive child. While he was in school and working at the Grand Union Supermarket in Wyckoff, New Jersey, John took accordion lessons, eventually performing a leveraged buyout of his instructor and taking over the business. His business was quite successful until Beatlemania swept the country and made accordions seem uncool but this acquisition inspired his entrepreneurial spirit and helped pay for his higher education.
John graduated from Newark College of Engineering in 1967 with both a Bachelor’s and a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Montana State University. While working towards his PhD, the Army called and John stepped up. He went to Fort Jackson in South Carolina for boot camp, destined to be shipped off to combat in Vietnam, when a surprise order came through. John’s previous work as an intern at the NSA in 1962, as well as his experience with computers at a time when that was unusual, saw him shuttled off to Arlington Hall in the Army ASA, defending our nation’s top secrets.
While still in the Army, John started working part-time for Scientific Time Sharing Corporation (later STSC). After his discharge, he switched to working full-time, which is when he met his future wife, Mary. After their first date, on the auspicious occasion of February 29, a whirlwind 3-month romance followed. This culminated in a wedding at the Rockville courthouse in Montgomery County, MD on June 9, 1972.
STSC was good to John, but his true interests lay elsewhere. In the late 80’s he left to run a small company and then went on to another, essentially working as a turnaround artist. John’s specialty was taking companies with two weeks of salary left on the books and making them succeed beyond their wildest dreams.
But John had his own wild dream. He wanted to take his experience, skills, and knowledge and hone them into a new process he called the Myrna Strategic Planning Process (MSPP). MSPP would provide guidance for small to medium-sized companies so that they could grow and achieve their goals. After years of talking about it, Mary reached her limit. She told him to put up or shut up. So on July 4th, 1991, Myrna Associates, Inc. was born.
As leader and co-founder of Myrna Associates, John’s vision and passion for strategy and planning saved countless businesses from collapse and helped build success for the companies, the stakeholders, and most importantly, the employees, allowing them to continue generating value in a workplace they could believe in. Today, there have been over 1,000 planning sessions and more than 200 clients, totaling millions of dollars in value that would otherwise have been lost.
In 2019, John’s beloved wife of 49 years, Mary (8/23/47- 6/22/21) was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time. John cared tirelessly for her until her death. Between caregiving and COVID, John let his follow-up appointments lapse, and a week after Mary died, John received his own devastating prognosis.
Despite his sorrow over losing Mary and his own grim diagnosis, John was not willing to simply give in. He worked indefatigably to continue building the business, gaining more insight and wisdom through multiple CEO and Vistage colleagues, where he also stepped in to provide guidance and mentorship. He spent his remaining time refining the planning process even further and publishing new and updated books so that his teachings could live on without him. Supported by his children and live-in care from his daughter-in-law Jennifer during the last months of his life, John was able to remain active in the business nearly until the end.
A fantastic husband, father, friend, and leader, John was dedicated to his family. John is survived by his children, Adam and Jennifer Myrna, and Kathern Myrna, a professor of veterinary ophthalmology at UGA, two devastated but wonderful grandsons, Connor and Peter, and his heartbroken dog, Jester. He also leaves behind cousins, nieces, nephews, and the large family he gained through Mary.
Myrna Associates is continuing John’s dream with his son Adam, a process engineer who collaborated with John on many of his books, taking the helm. Adam brings with him his perspectives as an employee, a manager, a small business owner, and an entrepreneur. With support from Marketing Manager Jennifer Baarson, Myrna Associates facilitators Maria Birkhead and Omari Kamal will continue to guide businesses with the strategic planning process that John spent over 30 years perfecting.
In lieu of flowers, it would please John’s family if you would place a bird feeder, preferably in a dogwood tree, Mary’s favorite. John and Mary loved to watch the birds visiting their garden oasis, and John later loved to watch them in the trees planted in Mary’s memory. Think of them both fondly whenever you hear birdsong or see the birds and blooms every spring.
Mary became responsible for the family meals at age 11, when her father passed and mother stepped in to run the local bank and support the family. Mary made every family recipe her own. For over 60 years she consumed every cook book, instructional video, and cooking competition show. Not only could she literally taste recipes, she was a master process engineer, reworking recipes and prep to enhance nutrition, simplify procedures, and minimize the chance of error.