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Kevin Adams Dies
Community Activist and Business
Leader
By Daniel Friend
The Winchester Star - February 2001
Kevin Adams at Cold Stream Lodge - 10/21/2000. Photo by
Brendan Bowie |
Kevin D. Adams, a community activist
and real estate leader described by his peers as a visionary with rock-solid
integrity, has died.
Adams, 43, president and principal broker for The Adams Cos. in Frederick
County, was pronounced dead on Monday
evening at Winchester Medical Center, hospital officials said.
Family members said he suffered a heart attack during an intense tennis
match at the Winchester Country Club.
"Itās the sort of thing you donāt expect to happen, a man in the
prime of his life struck down by a heart attack," said his father,
C. Douglas Adams.
Douglas Adams said he and his wife, Kay Nicholson Adams, were vacationing
in the Caribbean on Monday when he received word of his sonās death.
The couple flew home to Winchester on Tuesday morning.
"We are all bogged down with so much grief," said Skip Guidry,
Kevin Adamsā close friend and marketing director for The Adams Cos.
"Itās so sad. He did so much. The man was character personified.
The hole that this leaves is unimaginable."
"I never anticipated he would be as successful as he was,"
Douglas Adams said. "He took what was essentially a family business
and made it bigger than I ever could have believed."
Douglas Adams had retired from the business he founded, leaving his
son in charge of The Adams Cos. diverse real estate and development
subsidiaries.
Under Kevin Adamsā guidance, the firm helped to convert South Pleasant
Valley Road into a prosperous retail corridor, launched the construction
of the Trex Center Business Park on U.S. 522 North, and worked to transform
areas in downtown Winchester and near the Regional Airport into a technology-friendly
business environment.
"I always told him during his lifetime I was very proud of him,"
the grief-stricken father said of his son. Douglas Adams said on Tuesday
that his son-in-law, Richard Bell, will succeed Kevin Adams at The Adams
Cos. Douglas Adams added that he will come out of retirement and take
a more active role with the firm.
"Kevin Adams took us in directions most companies would have shied
away from, from fear and not knowing," Bell said.
Kevin Adams also championed preservation, particularly with the cityās
proposed Patsy Cline museum. He served as president of the organization
devoted to creating the museum, Celebrating Patsy Cline Inc.
According to Winchester-Frederick County Chamber of Commerce President
Charles Weiss, Kevin Adams has left a striking legacy of tourism and
economic development efforts.
"I have no doubt that had it not been for Kevin keeping the Patsy
Cline effort going, it may not be as far along as it is now," Weiss
said. "Kevin was definitely a visionary. He pushed the envelope
in the development of property in the city as well as the county."
"I am truly just very sorry for his untimely passing," Weiss
added.
Behind the scenes, Kevin Adams touched thousands of lives of those recovering
from substance abuse, friends said. "He was a tireless champion
for recovering addicts," Guidry said.
Adams founded and led the Bottom of the Mountain Meeting, a 12-step
fellowship group that held its regular meeting on Tuesday, honoring
him.
"He was very much interested in people and doing things for people,"
his father added.
Friends and family gathered at the Adams home in Winchester on Tuesday
to remember the man they said was the "center of the wheel"
and brought them all together.
A 17-year recovering addict, Kevin Adams was given a second chance and
dedicated his life to giving others a second chance, according to his
best friend, Hugh J. McGee.
The 50-year-old McGee, of Vienna, said he and Kevin Adams talked every
single day, without fail, for the past 10 years of their 15-year friendship.
Kevin Adams was actively involved in 12-step addiction recovery programs
and served as chairman of the board of Winchesterās Edgehill, a treatment
facility for substance abusers.
"The one thing about Kevin Adams is you knew where you stood,"
McGee said. "There was no hidden agenda and a lot of people canāt
take not having a hidden agenda."
Kevin Adamsā wife, Patricia, said he was a great father to their three
young children.
"He thought the kidsā lives were the most important thing in his
life," she said. "Everything he did was to make a future for
them, and me."
He leaves two daughters, 6-year-old Mei Fern and 5-year-old Lia, and
a son, Chayse, 2.
"Kevin was the kind of dad that I could go out of town for a week
and not have to leave any instructions," Patricia Adams added.
"He was a parent. He was totally involved in their lives."
Douglas Adams said he intends to memorialize his son, perhaps in a way
similar to the manner that Kevin Adams honored his late mother, Fern
Lorraine Adams, by naming a building in her honor. But he said itās
too soon to say when or how the memorial will take shape.
In all his dealings with people, Kevin Adams was straightforward and
honest about what he expected, Guidry said. "Kevin came from a
place of complete integrity, complete and utter integrity," Guidry
said. "If it wasnāt a good deal for everybody, he would walk away.
"He had a vision and a strength that could see it happening,"
Guidry added. "It was never a short-sighted move. It was never
a save-money-now move or a short-cut-something move.
"It was always, ĪLet's do this absolutely the best way we can.
It will pay off.ā It has paid off in everything that he touched."
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