SALISBURY, Md. — When Terry Conway left a stable career as CFO of Perdue Farms to take the helm of a soft crab company in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay area, he didn’t step into a booming business — he stepped into chaos. What followed was a decades-long journey of risk, reinvention and global expansion that transformed a small seafood company into a $60 million international brand.
In his new book, Business is Simple: From a Family Cottage Business to World Processing and Markets, Conway delivers a field-tested framework shaped by real-world pressures — from fierce competition and regulatory hurdles to international expansion and high-stakes decisions.
“What greeted me as the new owner was not a well-oiled machine, but chaos,” Conway writes in the book’s introduction. “Resources were scarce, decisions were based on limited experience, and crucial business functions needed to be built from scratch.”
Underpinning Conway’s narrative is the uncomplicated, three-part structure that helped him navigate the uncertainty:
• Continuously develop superior products.
• Process at a competitive advantage.
• Develop leads for sales to close.
This time-tested methodology guided Conway’s journey to build a business he could pass down to future generations. In his book, he retraces the risks, competition, obstacles, rebellions, mistakes and government barriers he encountered — and how he overcame them.
Along the way, readers will travel with Conway to a tilapia farm in Costa Rica, a beachhead in Thailand and a crabmeat startup in India — among many other “Indiana Jones-like” adventures — as his visionary core values and acumen for innovation help revolutionize the soft crab industry and expand the company’s reach far beyond domestic waters.
Part memoir, part manual, part survival story, Business is Simple delivers a wealth of wisdom and strategies for entrepreneurs, business leaders, family-owned companies and recent college graduates — anyone looking for real-world applications of business principles.
“I hope this book provides the structure for your great decisions and helps scale your own extraordinary business adventure,” Conway added.
Business is Simple: From a Family Cottage Business to World Processing and Markets
Publisher: Publish Your Purpose
Release Date: March 15, 2026
ISBN-13: 979-8887972206
Available from https://www.amazon.com/Business-Simple-Cottage-Processing-Markets/dp/B0GM3FYY1
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Terry Conway acquired sole ownership of Handy Seafood in 1981 and built the small cottage business into a prominent multinational brand with sales reaching $60 million in 2024. He has been Executive Chairman since 2016, when he transferred voting control to his five adult children.
Earlier in his career, Conway was a business adviser with accounting firm Touche Ross; an investment analyst for Laird & Company, a Wall Street private equity firm; and Chief Financial Officer of Perdue Farms Inc. He has lectured on managerial accounting at Carnegie Mellon University and on international marketing at Johns Hopkins University.
He holds an undergraduate degree in business from the University of Notre Dame and an M.S. in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon. He is an Eagle Scout, a veteran and a Kona Ironman. He lives in Salisbury, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore with his wife of 62 years.
Since his recent retirement, he is Executive Consultant to the Board.
For more information, please visit www.terryconway-bis.com.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Helen Cook
Senior Publicist
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2394
Friendswood, TX 77549
903.654.0938 Direct
1-800-854-1134
