The People Behind the Work
No account managers, no rotating cast, no “your rep will get back to you.” Six people run this firm, and this page is all of them — what each one owns, and why owners trust them with it.
Paul LaRosa — Founder & CEO
Paul LaRosa is the Founder and CEO of 8 Furlong Consulting, bringing more than two decades of diverse executive and entrepreneurial experience across finance, logistics, automotive, insurance, and business management. Born in Secaucus, New Jersey, and raised along the Jersey Shore, Paul developed an entrepreneurial mindset early in life that has continued throughout his professional career.
Paul earned his undergraduate degree from the University of South Carolina and his MBA from the University of Scranton. His professional career has included experience on Wall Street, founding and operating a moving and logistics company and insurance agency, and leadership roles within the automotive industry. These experiences ultimately led him to establish 8 Furlong Consulting, where he applies his broad business background to helping privately owned companies improve profitability, strengthen operations, and achieve sustainable growth.
Beyond 8 Furlong Consulting, Paul is the Managing Partner of 1st Class Racing, a Thoroughbred breeding and racing operation. He also serves as President of the South Carolina Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (SCTOBA), reflecting his continued involvement in South Carolina’s Thoroughbred industry.
Paul’s philosophy is straightforward: successful businesses are built one step at a time through disciplined execution, sound financial management, effective leadership, and a clear strategic plan. That philosophy is reflected in the name 8 Furlong Consulting—a furlong being a unit of measurement in horse racing, with eight furlongs comprising one mile.
Above all, Paul is a husband, father, entrepreneur, and business advisor who believes that building a successful business should ultimately support a successful life.
Paul resides in Chapin, South Carolina, where he enjoys family life with his wife and children and remains actively involved in both the business and equine communities.
Melynda Wright, CPA — Chief Financial Officer
Melynda grew up in Westchester County, New York, playing piano and cello — and learning service young, in the food pantry her father opened with local churches and synagogues. That thread never broke: volunteer EMT through her Fordham accounting degree, Guardian ad Litem in Charleston County family court, and foster parent. Professionally, she’s a CPA licensed in both New York and South Carolina, with 25 years spanning construction accounting — her specialty — grocery, manufacturing, non-profits, automotive, and government contract work, and she has lectured on employee retention and stands firmly behind her theories. As our CFO, Melynda leads everything financial at 8 Furlong, and she means it when she says a company’s success is her success — her clients become part of one large extended family. Member, AICPA and SCACPA.
Loren Lockyer — Chief Marketing Officer
Loren will tell you her most important role has nothing to do with marketing: she’s a wife and mom to two young girls, and life outside work revolves around family — staying active, painting, and finding creative things to enjoy together in the community. She brings that same grounded, people-first perspective to more than 20 years of marketing and creative leadership: brand strategy, digital, customer experience, and campaigns for everything from global names like Siemens and IRONMAN to growing businesses and startups. As our CMO, Loren connects business goals, client needs, and creative strategy into marketing that supports growth — strategic enough to write the plan, hands-on enough to run it, and forward-thinking enough to put AI to work without ever losing the people at the center.
John Harden — Chief Technology Officer
John’s proudest titles aren’t on this page: fiancé to an amazing woman, and dad to a talented 16-year-old he calls the best accomplishment of his life — with an awesome 13-year-old completing their family of four. He’s a Clemson fan who cut a deal at home: she pulls for the Tigers, he pulls for her Buffalo Bills. It makes for a happy home. He also finally learned to snowboard, which has become his and his son’s thing.
His path here refuses to summarize neatly: the Army straight out of high school, all 48 lower states behind the wheel of a commercial truck before turning 23, five and a half years in South Carolina law enforcement — including the South Carolina Department of Corrections Special Operations Response Team — then insurance sales, and the itch to do more. Teaching himself to generate his own leads pulled him into marketing, CRMs, automations, and websites; in the early days of OpenAI, he and two partners built a fully automated review-response system ahead of its time, and learned a career’s worth about commerce when the market caught up overnight. He then spent two and a half years as a construction inspector on road construction projects — some of the most hands-on technical work of his career outside of technology — while continuing to sharpen his skills against a rapidly advancing field. In late 2023 he founded F5 Branding Co. in Chapin, nearly quadrupling its gross sales in its second full year — and hired Paul as his business consultant, which is how one 8 Furlong story led to this one.
As CTO, John designs and builds client websites, CRM systems, automations and workflows, custom software, and AI implementations — and loves that no two clients ever hand him the same problem.
Canyon Durham — Director of Social Media
Ask Canyon what he does and you’ll hear about stories before you hear about cameras. Off the clock he’s on a soccer pitch, out on the lake with friends and family, or defending his Arsenal fandom — with a Star Wars collection he doesn’t apologize for. Professionally, he came up through photography and filmmaking: a Media Arts degree from the University of South Carolina, then work behind the lens on everything from documentary-style productions for the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina to real estate, sports, fashion, and events. At 8 Furlong, that range becomes client marketing — he learns each business first, then shoots, edits, and publishes content that looks like the company it came from. Never stock, never one-size-fits-all.
Donna Lowe — Staff Accountant
Donna is a proud mom, a dedicated dog mom, and a loving Yaya — and weekends usually find her bass fishing on a lake, cooking something worth the cleanup, or deep in a creative project, when she isn’t volunteering with local non-profits. At the office, she’s our staff accountant: detail-oriented, organized, dependable, and always willing to jump in wherever needed, with a background spanning accounting, property management, and business operations. She’s a QuickBooks Online expert and an Excel wizard with a rarer talent — translating financial jargon into plain, everyday language — and she treats every client’s business like her own. Messy process? She’s already streamlining it.
The Org Chart Is a Hallway
Client questions here don’t get routed; they get walked over. The books Melynda closes inform the plan Paul builds, which shapes the campaigns Loren runs, which live on the systems John wired — and Canyon’s camera carries it all outward, showing the communities they serve who their company is and how they give back to the places they call home. One relationship, four areas of expertise — and six people who’ve all seen your file.
Come Meet Us for Real
The photos are accurate, but the conversation is better.
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