The Family Business Crossroads: A Tale of Different Paths

Brian Cronin is a Principal at Brightstar. Brian leads Brightstar’s business development strategy and is a Brightstar Sourcing Steering Committee Member. He serves on the Board of Oasis Technology & Engineering, a Brightstar portfolio company.

Prior to joining Brightstar, Brian was a managing member of BPC Capital and led direct investments by family offices in operating companies. He was primarily responsible for business development and execution of value-creation plans for portfolio companies, including operational improvements and revenue growth strategies.

Previously, Brian co-founded Prosperity Construction, LLC, a civil site work construction company, in 2009. In 2018, Brian merged the company into a premier general construction company headquartered in the Southeast, active in 13 states. Brian began his career as an analyst at SPB Partners in Las Vegas, a multi-family office, where he assisted with growth capital, restructuring, and management reorganization.

Brian has been a Young Presidents Organization (YPO) member since 2020. Brian received his MBA from the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University and his B.A. in History from Brigham Young University. He won a gold medal in the 2009 Summer Deaflympics in Taiwan as a member of Team USA basketball team.

A seasoned corporate attorney with more than 30 years of experience, Howard Lamar helps clients navigate significant corporate events, including mergers and acquisitions, various types of corporate finance transactions and corporate governance issues, including challenges from activist shareholders. He works with boards of directors, senior management of public and private companies, entrepreneurs, family offices, and early-stage growth companies.

Howard’s practice includes:

Corporate Governance – Counseling companies on a variety of corporate and securities matters, including boards of directors on governance, public company disclosure matters, strategic analysis, special committees and activist shareholders.
Mergers & Acquisitions – Advising on equity and asset acquisitions, mergers and other business combinations, including transactions involving publicly traded companies, restructuring transactions, workout transactions involving financially distressed or bankrupt providers, and sell-side dispositions of businesses and carveouts.
Corporate Finance – Assisting issuers and underwriters in debt and equity transactions, including initial public offerings, follow-on offerings, and Rule 144A and institutional private placements.
Prior to attending law school, Howard spent three years with Bank of America (formerly, and during the time he was there, NCNB) where he was a corporate lending officer in NCNB’s Corporate and International Banking Group.