Life Skills VP and CFO isn't content only crunching numbers

John Adkins works with numbers by trade but he goes to great pains to get out of the office in order to stay in touch with the mission of the organization he serves - Life Skills.

"It's easy to stay in the office all the time," says Adkins, who lives in Fenton. "What I do is make a point to go out and visit the homes of the people we serve."

Life Skills is a United Way agency that assists people with developmental disabilities to live and work in the St. Louis community. It has been in existence for more than 45 years and currently serves more than 1,500 adults and teens who have developmental disabilities.

Those developmental disabilities include Down syndrome, learning disability, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, head injury and autism. For many people the cause is unknown.

Adkins is an executive vice president and chief financial officer for Life Skills, positions by their nature that don't require him to take part in the daily challenges of those who provide or receive services from Life Skills.

"Yes I'm an accountant by trade, but it's important to have a mission. It's the extra component of my position,"Adkins said.

Adkins' mission long has been with organizations who help those in need. He has had 35 years of experience in strategic planning, business expansion, and designing outcome measurements. He's been with Life Skills since November 2006 after working for more than 20 years with Boys Hope, Girls Hope, a non-profit organization that helps provide at-risk children with stable homes, education and emotional support.

Adkins also serves on several non-profit boards including the Special Education Foundation. In May 2009 he was named as a finalist in the St. Louis Business Journal's "CFO of the Year" awards in the large non-profit sector.

Prior to his non-profit career, Adkins was controller of a St. Louis-based engineering and architectural firm. He has a degree in business and accounting from the Univerity of Missouri.

Adkins says he enjoys his role helping those who need an assist to face life's challenges.

"We mainly serve adults who have developmental diabilities to gain independence in their communities," he said.

The independence Life Skills strives to provide for its clients ideally leads to employment.  Today, and in recent years, Adkins says, employment success has been "put under pressure in this economy."

Part of the Life Skills program is to educate the employment community of the skills his vclients have and the benefits of hiring someone with a developmental disability.

There are a variety of approaches the organization take to increase its chances of success

"We work with companies, then with individuals, and then provide coaching on the job," he said.

"The biggest hurdle we have is providing an opportunity (for a client) to talk to the employer," Adkins said.

To that end, Adkins works with companies, spreading the Life Skills message and paving the way an eaasier path for its clients to secure employment.

"We are educating the employment community as to what people with developmental disabilities can do," he said, adding that some people he has assisted in finding employment for went on to become the most reliable employees at a company.

One of the hurdles, though not directly related to a person's disability, Adkins says, is transportation. Often Life Skills clients do not drive and are dependent on public transportation to get to work. When Metro cutback, and then restored, a number of bus routes recently. it left some of Life Skills clients in a quandary as to how to get to work. In many cases, friends and family members came to the rescue and made sure that a ride to work was secured.

Adkins says it's problems like finding transportation that always keep the mission of Life Skills challenging.

"We just stay committed," he said.

And when a hurdle  becomes particularly challenging, Adkins always can retreat back to his office and crunch some numbers which always, ideally, add up.