Dorothy Beckert and Warren Miller co-founded their firm in Tulsa in 1991. Beckmill Research, LLC, orginated the SPARC Framework and the Value Map, a proprietary tool that guides the use of firm-specific capabilities and resources to extend duration of competitive advantage and increase equity value. Now based in the Virginia countryside near Lexington, the firm and its affiliates limit their work to value maps, litigation support, valuation (e.g., complex valuations [e.g., blockage discounts, mixed capital structures, derivatives, etc.]); gift/estate tax; private equity; IP; business planning), M&A (through Beckmill Capital, LLC), strategy (building new capabilities, related diversification, executive screening-recruiting-testing), exit planning (including succession and transitions, planned or not), and statistics-driven research and education (e.g., benchmarking; customer-loyalty surveys; competitive intelligence; and short courses for professionals).