About Adjor Inc
Don Turner and Frank Dame grew up as close to brothers as two cousins could be. They started boating together before they could ride bikes and spent their early youth sailing Long Island Sound. Frank’s family moved to Florida when he was young and he became a lifelong Floridian from an early age. Don, on the other hand, married a California girl nearly 47 years ago and spent most of his adult life on the West coast.
While Frank followed a corporate agenda managing equipment financing and truck sales for International Harvester, leading sales departments GE Capital, Progress Telecom, and GTE Leasing Corporation, eventually becoming President of that company. He was also the General Manager of Verizon Credit Corporation. His pull to the Clearwater community landed him as volunteer Chairman of the Board of the then small and struggling Clearwater Marine Aquarium (www.seewinter.com ). Assuming the position COO in ‘08, he assisted in directing that non-profit to astonishing levels of growth and success, leading it through the transformation resulting from being the center of two major Hollywood feature films starring Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jr., and Ashley Judd. While doing all of this Frank maintained strong ties to his community serving on the Clearwater Community Development Board, boards of The Clearwater Downtown Partnership, Chairman of the Clearwater Jolley Trolley, and Clearwater Beach Chamber of Commerce. He was also a member of the Pinellas County Boating Access Task Force, among others.
Don took an entirely different business route on the West Coast. In 1973 Don Co-founded a small restaurant group that would eventually build 23 restaurants under his operational leadership. The company grew from 35 employees to just under 1,000. 19 of the 23 restaurants were 9,000 square foot buildings built from the ground up to replicate classic Victorian mansions housing family oriented dining with full bars located throughout California. Turner sold his interest in the group in the early 80s leaving Santa Barbara to pursue family priorities. Choosing to land in the heart of the Napa Valley the Turners were enveloped in the wonderful charm and beauty of Northern California. There he formed Jorad & Company, (www.joradandcompany.com) a financial services and consulting firm that works with small and medium-sized businesses helping them find their way and achieve their growth objectives. Specializing in financial consulting, capital acquisition and operating structure and development, Jorad and its team has lead a great many small companies out of the paths of danger and on to ultimate success over that past 35 years.
Beyond that, Turner has owned and operated the Golden Bear Inn, (www.goldenbearinn.com) a classic California inn in the heart of downtown Berkeley, is currently CEO of Etched Images, Inc., California’s premier custom wine bottle etching and wine wax sales company (www.etchedimages.com), Is CFO and Director of Ross Painting (www.rosspainting.com), partner and CFO in Celadon Restaurant (www.celadonnapa.com), and has had interests in other hotel properties, restaurants, and wineries in Napa and California. He has served as president of the California Lodging Association, been a director of the California Restaurant Association, served on the Advisory Board of the Santa Barbara City College, served on the board of the Mary Mount School in Santa Barbara, and sat on the board of numerous small companies dealing in the wine, hospitality, construction, and trucking industries.
In early 2017 Don felt a pull to spend time on the East Coast close to his cousin Frank and other relatives. With that in mind, he and his wife, Kathi, purchased a home in Clearwater Beach where he and Frank have taken it upon themselves to form Adjor, Inc., a commercial property management company and business consulting firm bringing their combined talents and skill sets to Florida’s West Coast.
Together, Frank and Don stand ready and available to bring their broad and diversified backgrounds to assist the small and medium-sized companies on the West Coast of Florida to manage their commercial properties or maneuver their way through the complexities of growing a successful business in today’s complicated business arena.