Gary Harpst is the founder and CEO of Six Disciplines Corporation. Six Disciplines Corporation offers a complete execution-optimized excellence program for small- and midsized businesses through Six Disciplines centers located in major cities across the U.S. The company is the result of thousands of hours of market research, 100 man-years of development and field testing and more than $20 million of funding.

He is the author of the highly-rated book Six Disciplines for Excellence: Building Small Businesses That Learn, Lead and Last, which offers specific details about the Six Disciplines business-building methodology. Six Disciplines for Excellence is consistently ranked in the top 10 books of the Organizational Learning category on Amazon. Harpst’s book, Execution Revolution: Solving The One Problem That Makes Solving All Other Problems Easier, details the elements of a complete strategy execution program, why the time is now for flawless execution, and clarifies why such programs will become mainstream for successful small- and midsized businesses.

In 2004, Harpst founded Plumbline Solutions, Inc., a Findlay, Ohio-based firm that is a software engineering service for Microsoft® Independent Software Vendors (ISV) and Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) Channel Partners.

Prior to Six Disciplines and Plumbline, Harpst was co-founder and CEO of Solomon Software, Inc. Gary grew the company to more than 400 employees and sold it to Great Plains Software in 2000, which was bought by Microsoft Corporation in 2001. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in computer science, both from Ohio State University.