Our story starts with Margaret and Jay Adams, who married during the Great Depression. Jay walked several miles to work at a Chevrolet dealership in Clayton, where he trained as a mechanic by day and worked nights in the couple's backyard repairing cars in Clio Alabama. They saved enough money for Margaret to get a college degree. She taught elementary school for 40 years. During the 1940s, they started a small auto parts store and machine shop. Jay Adams spent decades returning at night after having dinner with his family rebuilding engines for Chevrolet dealerships across the South. Through the years, they invested in real estate and helped build Clio Baptist church, where Jay served as a deacon for 35 years, and Margaret taught Sunday school.

Jay Adams believed in treating people kindness and compassion and believed God uses all of us to fulfill his wishes. "Whatever we think we own in this world is not really ours. God is only allowing us to manage it temporarily. Do this in a manner that honors HIM”.

Today their Grandson John Carroll continues that tradition in small family office with what Jay and Margaret established 80 years ago investing in commercial real estate.