The birth of the Institute began in the 70's with Don Schmincke's early thesis research at the Harvard/MIT Biomedical Engineering department. His continued fascination with human studies led him to graduate work at Johns Hopkins University where he began to explore the links between science and management theory.

Later, while leading regional management consulting efforts for a F500 company in the 80's, Don noticed evidence of high failure rates in management theory and an increasing cynicism of CEOs regarding the consulting industry. This became impetus for a new scientific investigation of innovative approaches to address executive concerns and allow guaranteeable results.

Don began teaching his new approaches in graduate programs at Johns Hopkins University in the 90's and testing them with CEO members of The Executive Committee (now the world's largest CEO organization). Methods International, Inc. was later incorporated as a research arm to fund further R&D. At this time he published his first article for the American Management Association on strategy for the 90's.

As research continued, newer insights from ontology and anthropology for corporate use were developed, tested, and applied in the field. These successful applications resulted in a series of patent-pending methods known as SAGA (Schmincke Anthropic Group Archetypes).

In the late-90s Don published his first book on anthropological insights in leadership called The Code of the Executive. It was based on a management training program written 700 years ago. He received permission from Oxford University and The Japan Foundation in Tokyo to use the research and translations of Dr. Al Sadler on the original manuscripts. This book is now in multiple languages and still a bestseller in the CEO market.

In 2000 Don spun off the consulting activities of Methods into SAGA Worldwide, LLC., which evolved into The SAGA Institute, a community of independent contractor professionals trained in SAGA methods and certified to consult with clients globally.

Today, Don is researching new applications of evolutionary genetics in leadership as he continues to publish, speak, and consult with clients, yet he still finds time to spend with his wife and 2 kids in Baltimore.