Co-Founder, Dyad Partners,
LLC
Chairman, Thermex–Thermatron, LP
Re-engineering Business …
Dyad Partners is the investment partnership brainchild of David
Lesser ’79, a St. John’s trained lawyer, and his two friends who
happen to be a CPA and an international banker. The team’s
financial knowledge and business acumen combines to form a private
equity firm that acquires and optimizes small, successful
manufacturing companies. Established in the late 1990’s, Dyad
Partners has owned and operated three manufacturing businesses that
when first acquired operated with a core set of common attributes:
consistent profitability, annual revenue of between $10 million and
$25 million and a strong management team facing a retirement
transition on the near horizon.
During his senior year at St. John’s Law, Mr. Lesser served as the
Editor-in-Chief of Law Review. Reflecting on the
caliber of his fellow students during the first year of his St.
John’s legal education Mr. Lesser noted, “I remember sitting in
class surrounded by all of these brilliant students. You had
to work your tail off to excel because everybody in the class
seemed to be the cream of their respective crop.”
After law school, Mr. Lesser went on to clerk for the Honorable
James C. Hill of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit. The clerkship was followed by a four-year stint with
Sullivan & Cromwell, General Counsel positions at Riggs
National Bank, Ryland Homes and The CompuCare Company, where his
skill set encapsulated legal responsibilities, but also a
significant amount of operational proficiency. The time spent
with these organizations further nurtured a convergence of legal
and business expertise that, when combined with Mr. Lesser’s
entrepreneurial spirit, resulted in the entity known as Dyad
Partners.
Mr. Lesser explained, “success can be attributed to a willingness
to work hard, being open minded to learning the multi-faceted
aspects of the projects being addressed, and thinking both
strategically and with a tactical mindset.” At present Mr.
Lesser serves as Chairman of Thermex-Thermatron, LP, a Louisville
company that engineers, manufactures, sells and services industrial
radio-frequency and microwave heating equipment.
When asked to tender career advice to the St. John’s Law Class of
2010 Mr. Lesser shared these thoughts, “Where there are challenges,
there are also opportunities. Your perfect job may not exist
today, so you shouldn’t put your life on hold until the ‘perfect
opportunity’ comes along. You may have to create your own perfect
opportunity. Broaden your horizon from a practice or
geographic perspective so that you can start working and applying
the critical thinking skills you learned at St. John’s Law.
Do not be afraid to move out of your comfort zone as relationships
and situations present themselves. Approach your endeavors
with passion and you will realize personal and professional
success.”
When not tending to business and family, Mr. Lesser plays catcher
for a men’s hardball team that competes in tournaments around the
nation and continues to chase his dream of having a single digit
golf handicap. Mr. Lesser sites as his greatest accomplishment,
convincing his wife Nancy to marry him. Nancy, a former partner
with Williams & Connolly, has a successful mediation and
arbitration practice in Washington, D.C. The Lesser’s have three
grown children.
David would love to hear from fellow St. John’s Law graduates from
the Class of 1979.
He can be reached via e-mail:
davidlesser@dyadpartners.com
or at (202)494-7911.