Leadership
​​​​​​Our Leadership
​
Bryce Bowman
Founder of P1A
In 2017, Bryce Bowman founded People 1st Advisors (P1A), a company focused on investing in small and middle-market companies and partnering with the teams to find the best path forward together. During his career, he has founded four businesses and successfully acquired and operated more than 10 service-based firms.
Previously he was CEO, managing partner and board member of Community 1st Advisors, a homeowner association management firm with more than 30,000 properties that was recently acquired by Associa, the nation’s largest association management group. He was also founding executive director and board member of Citizen Schools, an organization that operated within Chicago Public Schools in order to advance student proficiencies in under-resourced neighborhood schools. Bowman was Partner and Founder of SMB Asset Advisors, a commercial real estate investment firm which invested in, and successfully exited, a series of real estate ventures.
He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point with a B.S. in Political Science and Systems Engineering and obtained an MBA from the Olin Business School, Washington University, St. Louis. Bryce also holds the prestigious Masters in Education Leadership from The Broad Center housed at Yale University’s Graduate School of Management. He served in the U.S. Army, achieving the rank of Captain.
Bryce is very active within Chicago’s philanthropic community and has decades of experience on nonprofit and for profit boards.
He is Varsity Assistant Football Coach at DePaul College Prep, Chicago. Bryce lives in Chicago with his wife of 20 years and their seventh, fifth and third-grade children.
Erik VanLaningham
President of P1A
Erik VanLaningham joined People 1st Advisors (P1A) in March of 2023. During his career, he has successfully spent nearly two decades in various executive leadership positions at Emerson, a Fortune 100 global leader of technology, industrial, and service businesses. Erik brings a deep background of operating management, strategic planning, sales and marketing and supply chain experience to P1A.
He was most recently a Global Vice-President at Emerson Automation Solutions within the $1B+ Industrial Automation business unit. Under Erik’s marketing and business development leadership, the business added more than +$210M of incremental revenue since 2018 and achieved record sales and profitability in 2022. Before that, he was Vice President, Marketing for InterMetro Industries, an Emerson Commercial and Residential Solutions Company, where he successfully led the integration of three technology acquisitions to deliver Emerson’s Industrial & Commercial Customers, an interoperable hardware, software and service solution. Erik held a wide range of operating management and senior executive management roles across several functions during his 18-year tenure at Emerson.
VanLaningham achieved the rank of Captain in the U.S. Army and obtained his B.S. degree in Business Management and Systems Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point and an MBA from Washington University’s Olin Business School.
Erik is passionate about supporting local and national veterans organizations (Team Red, White & Blue and The Children of Fallen Patriots) and is a board member of Anchor World Services, Oasis Heating & Cooling and board chairman at QEI Automation Solutions.
He lives in Philadelphia with his wife of 12 years and their first grade daughter.
