Mission
We create and implement strategic plans to help businesses proactively solve recurring problems.
Vision
We envision a world where people think proactively and strategically. To that end, we help business owners and leaders clarify their goals and outcomes, develop plans for sustainably achieving those goals, support your implementation, help you know when to deviate from the plan, and coach you and your team along the way to success.
We help business leaders find the problems they are sick of, and we work with them to develop plans to solve and eliminate those problems for good.
Through proactive planning, rather than reactive responding, we help business leaders step back to work ON their businesses, rather than only IN them.
“We believe that by proactively planning, rather than reactively responding, business leaders can work ON their businesses, rather than only IN them.”
Craig A. Escamilla
Values
We believe in:
- Proactive, personalized planning
- Data-driven analysis and decision making
- Future-oriented creativity
- Effectiveness and efficiency
- Exceptional quality
- Availability and responsiveness
- Integrity and ethical behavior
Goals
CAE Solutions, LLC, was founded to pursue the following strategic goals:
- Serve a select and limited group of clients annually, with excellence, through plan development and implementation
- Provide training and coaching services in using a proactive mindset
- Contribute extensive practice-based knowledge to businesses’ strategy and planning resources
- Establish “go-to” resources in strategic thinking for small-to-medium businesses
- Re-invest in the communities that support us
Craig A. Escamilla
Hi! I’m Craig Escamilla, and I am fascinated by the intersection of human behavior and business decisions. I like to help others develop proactive solutions to recurring problems. With over twenty years of consulting, teaching, and senior management experience, I have firsthand, practical experience helping others work ON rather than in their businesses. As a longtime client once said, I’m like a personal trainer for businesses: I help people clarify their goals, create plans to achieve them, and coach and support them along the way.
Advising
As an advisor, I help small and medium-sized businesses with developing and implementing goals and plans, succession planning, developing their leadership and staff teams, resolving team conflicts and improving communication, and finding and keeping customers . My current and past clients throughout Texas are in the oil and gas, commercial and industrial construction, accounting, higher education, health care, hospitality services, community service, family enterprise, and nonprofit industries. Thanks to our work together, my clients have launched successful new business lines, increased sales revenue, client bases, and charitable contributions, developed stronger teams, clarified their goals, improved team communication, and increased productivity and efficiency.
Coaching and Public Speaking
I also coach clients and deliver workshops and presentations on strategy, business communication, improving meetings, productivity, leadership, and ethics. My speaking and coaching clients include salon owners, insurance agents, IT teams, engineering professionals, HR managers, and family enterprise owners.
Experience
Prior to launching CAE Solutions, LLC, I practiced what I preach at the Symphony of Southeast Texas and Lamar University. As Executive Director at the Symphony, we increased our annual budget by 20%, increased ticket sales and individual contributions by 25% each, conducted a successful Music Director search, published two case studies, and eliminated all financial debt.
In my eleven years in Lamar University’s College of Business, I taught over one thousand students in various management classes. As the College’s Director of Accreditation and Assessment, I helped establish the student success office, which saw retention increases over 20% in three years. As the University’s Executive Director of Retention and Student Success, I oversaw a nearly 5% increase in first-year retention to record levels in just two years. I also served on the Enrollment Management leadership team that achieved record enrollment, retention, and graduation rates, despite challenges from tropical weather and COVID-19.
I have published case studies and articles on strategic planning, leadership, ethical behavior, HR issues, and nonprofit management. I’ve given speeches and presentations at national and international conferences and to local civic organizations on leadership, decision making, strategy, and ethical behavior. I led and served on teams that created undergraduate and graduate courses on critical thinking and decision making, productivity, organizational behavior, strategy, and conflict resolution.
I am proud to have earned Bachelor of Music and Master of Business Administration degrees. In 2008, I was selected as one of thirty participants in the League of American Orchestras’ Essentials of Orchestra Management Seminar, and I was named one of Southeast Texas’s 40 Under 40 Young Professionals in 2014. During my undergraduate music studies, I was selected as a McNair Scholar, conducting undergraduate research in musical improvisation. I believe strongly in community service, and am actively involved in Southeast Texas, specifically with the Rotary Club of Beaumont, where I served as Treasurer from 2023-2025 and chaired the strategic planning committee for over ten years, and the Greater Beaumont Chamber of Commerce, where served as Chair of the Board of Directors in 2024-2025. I was honored to received the T. Kelsey Lamb, Sr. Award for Business Ethics from the Rotary Club of Beaumont in 2025.
I live in Beaumont, TX, with my wife and better half, Laura, and I am proud to serve, and serve with, clients and friends throughout our community.