About The Author
Author Michael D. Jenkins
Michael D. Jenkins, founder of Ronin Software, is a Harvard‐ trained tax attorney and former Big 4 CPA with a distinguished career in law, accounting, and economic consulting,as well as being a million- selling author of small business books and self-taught programmer and publisher of several business and finance-related software programs since from 1986 to 2026.
His professional background includes:
Economics and financial consulting with Economics Research Associates in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, where major projects he headed included the site selection study for the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library; a long-term diversification study for Conoco; and downtown Philadelphia hotel and condo feasibility studies for Bankers Trust and the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority
CPA and tax supervisor roles with the international CPA firm of Peat, Marwick & Mitchell (now KPMG) in Los Angeles, where he was ranked by management as the #1 tax specialist (firm-wide) in the large global firm
Senior tax and labor law attorney at Cooley, Godward, Castro, Huddleson & Tatum (now Cooley LLP) in San Francisco, specializing in small business and Silicon Valley startups
Senior tax partner at Kimbell, McKenna & von Kaschnitz, a regional San Francisco Bay Area CPA firm
He retired from law and CPA practice in 1986 to devote himself full‐ time to writing books as well as legal- and finance-related software. In addition to the book series, he has constantly developed and published three software programs, the Small Business Advisor, which includes all the content of the book series, plus two sophisticated Windows financial game programs played by users in over 125 countries, Wall Street Raider and Speculator.
Publishing Legacy
Jenkins is the creator of the million‐ selling Starting and Operating a Business series, originally published as print editions by business publishers from 1981–2003. After the original book in the series, Starting and Operating a Business in California and several other state editions began being sold in Costco and other wholesale clubs, the series was expanded in 1984 through a co-authoring partnership with Ernst & Young to cover all 50 states and D.C. Eventually, the print series sold over 1.2 million copies and earned serious praise from cover articles in major business magazines, including Forbes and Inc. Magazine. The initial California edition was nominated for the Order of the Coif award for excellence in legal writing.
In recent years, all of the books in the series have also been published as customizable “smart” content in the author's Small Business Advisor software program for Windows. He has also published and updated 34 of the state editions as Kindle e‐ books, with complete revisions for each released on a regular basis, with newly updated editions for one or more of the states released each month. All 34 e-books are now affordably priced and available for purchase on Amazon.
Personal Note
Based in the red rock canyon country of Southern Utah, Jenkins remains the sole author and operator of the Ronin Software e-book and software publishing company — still updating his publications and software at age 82, although he ceased development of his Wall Street Raider financial game/simulation software in 2026 since licensing it to another publisher for further development.