About Strategic Advantages

Strategic Advantages has broad and deep experience in a number of industries including: automotive, accounting, banking, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, printing, telecommunications and utilities.

Clients served include: Asurion, Brim Healthcare, Dell, Deloitte & Touche, Education Services of America, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Hospital Corporation of America, McKee Foods Corporation, Tennessee Donor Services, and TherEx.

Dr. Dan Elkins and Dr. Jay Conner together have five decades of experience. They are supported by a team of veteran consultants in cities across America.

Dan E. Elkins, Ed.D. - President, C.O.O.

Dan Elkins

Dr. Elkins has directed counseling, executive career development, management consulting and career transition for more than 25 years. Throughout his professional career, he has worked with individuals and groups to empower them to achieve their full potential. Helping people reach their personal and professional goals begins with understanding and enhancing who they are and how that relates to what they do. Dr. Elkins' skills and background uniquely position him to address the organizational and human development needs of the corporate marketplace.

Dr. Elkins is President/CEO of the Nashville, TN based Strategic Advantages, providing Organizational and Human Capital Solutions. He leads a consulting team focused on organizational, individual and team assessments, executive coaching and small team effectiveness. Strategic Advantages provides nationally recognized consultants for both short and long term engagements throughout a multi-state area.

Prior to Strategic Advantages, he was an area Managing Director for Spherion Human Capital Consulting Group, based in Nashville. In this capacity, he provided leadership to the Nashville office and a five-state area covering Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi. As an additional part of his responsibility, Dr. Elkins coordinated and delivered major consulting engagements in many industries including automotive, accounting, banking, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, printing, telecommunications and utilities.

Earlier in his career, he served as a private practitioner/counselor, a seminar leader and also as a motivational speaker for over 15 years. In these roles, Dr. Elkins provided career development and personal counseling to individuals and groups from virtually every walk of life. As a part of his extensive experience in individual and organizational consulting, Dr. Elkins is a noted expert in executive assessment and development and a widely sought executive coach at the corporate officer level. In addition, he guides and delivers processes in strategic planning, team building, leadership and career transition for numerous Fortune Top 200 Companies.

Additional interests for Dr. Elkins include community involvement. He has served as a key coordinator in funding campaigns for the YMCA. Also, for the past five years, he has served on the Board of Directors for Miriam's Promise, a crisis pregnancy and adoption agency. His professional affiliations include membership in the International Association of Career Management Professionals, Omicron Delta Kappa national leadership fraternity and the Tennessee/Kentucky Organizational Development Network.

Dr. Elkins earned his Ed.D. in Human Development Counseling and Consulting from Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. He, his wife Meryll and their two children reside in Brentwood, Tennessee.


John J. (Jay) Conner, Ph.D., SPHR

Jay Conner

Dr. Conner, with more than 30 years of experience in communications, human resources, and human resources development, oversees the Enterprise Services Division at Strategic Advantages.


Among his accomplished areas of instruction and facilitation are:

He has assisted clients in establishing the HR function in both start-up situations and in divisions of large companies. Additionally, Dr. Conner consults with companies of all sizes and employees at all levels on "The Great Discovery," an incredibly powerful way of leadership thinking. Rooted in the highly successful methodology of Six Sigma, The Great Discovery focuses on a repeatable and teachable way of reasoning that can be implemented by nearly anyone at any education or experience level.

Dr. Conner has experience in a number of industries including higher education, healthcare, software development, wholesale building supplies, food service, retail food distribution, transportation and third party logistics.

He began his business career with Ryder System as Director of Training for Truckstops of America. He established and implemented HR strategy, curriculum development, program delivery and evaluating process effectiveness for this $500 million division which included 2,500 employees. Dr. Conner also served as Director of Human Resources for Ryder Freight Management, a division of 500 employees and revenues of $100 million. He later created the human resources function for a new division of Ryder, International Operations and Business Development. In this position, he directed 12 labor campaigns and prevailed in 11, resulting in savings of $8-9 million.

After his successful and extensive career at Ryder, Dr. Conner worked as Vice President of Human Resources for the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, Director of Management Development for Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, and Vice President of Human Resources for Urology Healthcare Group, a physician management company based in Nashville. In these positions, he was responsible for training and development, recruiting and retention, manpower planning, employee relations, compensation, and benefits and legal compliance.

Dr. Conner later served as a partner with Conner, Gering & Associates, Management Consultants. The firm's clients included: Aspect Communications, Inc., Hospital Corporation of America, Kenny Pipe and Supply, Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., Dell Computer Corp., Quickway Transportation, The Heart Group, The Path Group, Saver Group, Inc., Little Planet Learning. Pinnacle Financial Partners and AmSouth Bank.

He was awarded the B.A. Degree from Georgetown College and the M.A. and PH.D. in Communications from LSU. He earned the SPHR certification in 1997 and added a "Six Sigma Green Belt Certification" in 2009.