FOUNDER & MANAGING PRINCIPAL

For more than five decades, Earl May has observed manufacturing from the plant floor, the executive office, and the owner’s position.

That experience includes operating performance, workforce capability, quality, capacity, acquisitions, capital commitments, organizational transitions, and the financial consequences of decisions that operations could not sustain.

May & Company was built from a clear conviction: consequential manufacturing decisions should be tested against operational reality before leadership commits capital, accepts risk, or determines the path forward.

Earl May’s experience spans the operating conditions that shape consequential manufacturing decisions:

• Plant operations and production performance 
• Quality systems and process stability 
• Workforce capability and organizational leadership 
• Capacity constraints and capital requirements 
• Business ownership and financial responsibility 
• Acquisitions and operational integration 
• Restructuring and organizational transition 
• Executive decision-making under operational pressure 

This breadth makes it possible to evaluate a manufacturing decision as an operating system, not as an isolated financial, technical, or management issue.

Across decades of manufacturing experience, Earl May repeatedly observed a difference between what leadership believed was happening and what operations could actually sustain.

Financial reports, operating metrics, forecasts, and management explanations often described parts of the organization without revealing how those conditions interacted or where risk was accumulating.

Operational Decisioneering™ was developed to examine that gap, connect operational evidence to financial consequence, and give executives a more reliable basis for consequential manufacturing decisions.

Every May & Company engagement is led directly by Earl S. May, III—from defining the executive decision through examining operational evidence, interpreting material risk, and presenting the final recommendation.

Clients do not receive a junior consulting team, a standardized assessment, or a software-generated conclusion.

The engagement remains intentionally direct: the executive responsible for the decision works with the individual responsible for the judgment.

Earl May holds BBA, MBA, and MSA degrees from the University of Michigan and is a Doctor of Business Administration candidate at the university.

His doctoral research examines Operational Decisioneering™, operational risk, evidence interpretation, and the conditions required for Executive Decision Confidence™ in manufacturing organizations.

The academic work provides added structure and discipline to judgment formed through more than five decades in manufacturing.

Earl May’s manufacturing career began as an apprentice machinist, where operating decisions were experienced through production requirements, equipment capability, quality expectations, and the practical consequences of missed assumptions.

That foundation expanded through manufacturing leadership, business ownership, acquisitions, financial responsibility, and executive decision-making.

The progression from plant-floor work to enterprise responsibility continues to shape the May & Company Operational Decisioneering central principle: operational reality must be understood before consequential decisions are made.

“I founded May & Company around a straightforward standard: before leadership commits capital, accepts risk, or determines the future of a manufacturing organization, the operating assumptions behind that decision should be independently tested.

Every engagement carries my name, my judgment, and my direct responsibility for the recommendation delivered.”

Earl S. May, III
Founder & Managing Principal

A confidential executive conversation with Earl S. May, III establishes the decision being considered, the operational uncertainty surrounding it, and whether independent verification is appropriate.