Adam Russo liked to lift people up. Whether as a therapist, business coach, or board member, Russo would get to the heart of an issue and try to make a change for the better.
Launching his counseling business in Naperville
Born on the east coast in New Rochelle, New York, once he moved to Naperville some two decades ago, he quickly started to make his mark. He launched Edgewood Clinical Services in Naperville in 2004, offering family counseling with a focus on adolescence. A trained therapist, Russo took a particular interest in helping young people thrive, finding ways to both motivate and challenge them. That outreach extended into the community as well, through his work with youth-focused nonprofit KidsMatter.
“Prior to COVID, he did a few parenting workshops within the school districts we partner with in helping parents communicate with their kids and giving them really amazing strategies to help with that whole parenting process,” said Nina Menis, Executive Director of KidsMatter.
Russo’s TEDx Talk
Russo’s take on teaching kids how to fail struck a chord with many and eventually became a topic he’d cover in a TEDx talk
“A lot of the reasons I believe why kids get anxious is because they don’t want to fail,” he said during that presentation. “There’s too much pressure on being perfect because culturally there’s a lot of that we put riding on being perfect and checking all the right boxes, because if you don’t check the right boxes, you’re not going to be successful into adulthood, and at young ages, kids are already starting to experience that anxiety.”
Providing parents with strategies in “Unwritten Rules”
He’d reach a broader audience as an author, giving parenting strategies in his book “Unwritten Rules.”
“I believe all parents want their kids to grow up into successful adults,” Russo said about the book. “I define successful being as adaptive and independent.”
Growing his career
His own adaptive nature would help him grow Edgewood Clinical Services into an 8-figure business, which landed on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in the nation not once, but twice. Part of that success he would credit to a business coach and friend Rick Lochner.
“We met through the chamber. So we were both on the speaker’s bureau and you just get to know people, common interests, shared interests,” said Lochner. “He approached me one day. He said, you know, I’m kind of stuck. The business was at a kind of a plateau.”
Russo would sell that business in 2020 but held firm to the lessons he’d learned from Rick, realizing that he’d like to help people in the same way he’d been helped. In 2023, he started Reliable Coaching and Strategy, with a focus on guiding others to success and better leadership in their businesses.
So when Adam sold his business, he tried to go back into the corporate world [and] work for somebody else and decided that just wasn’t his jam anymore,” said Lochner. “At that time, I was starting to talk about needing associate coaches because my own business was expanding and growing, to the point where I couldn’t do it all myself.”
Impact on the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce
Russo’s outreach extended into the Naperville business community in other ways as well. He was Chairman of the Board of the Naperville Chamber of Commerce from 2016 to 2017, also serving on its board of directors.
“I will forever be grateful to Adam and his advocacy not only for me but for the chamber as a whole, said Nicki Anderson, past president of the Chamber. “He never missed a meeting, he always took time to meet with me and discuss the most pressing issues. He took the role very seriously. Given that I had only served a board member, never worked for a board, I couldn’t have asked for a better board president.”
A proud husband and father
He took his commitments to work and community to heart, but it was his role as husband to his wife Heather, and dad to his three children, that he held most dear.
“Adam was crazy proud of his girls,” said Anderson. “Whenever we’d meet, we’d spend about 15 minutes talking about family. When he’d talk about his girls, his face would light up.”
His impact as a parent, and on parenting, is the legacy he’ll leave behind. Russo died on Sept. 8, at the age of 48.
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