TAB Member Spotlight - Ron Rowland
September 15th, 2008
Check out this interesting Austin Business Journal article on Ron Rowland, who has been a member of TAB-Austin since 2000.
Learn About Capital Cities Asset Management Inc.
Delegating for Success
Austin Business Journal - by Laura Hipp ABJ Staff
In the high stress world of managing other people’s money, Ron Rowland has learned a unique skill — relaxing.
At least once a year, he takes a few weeks away from his work as president and chief investment officer of Capital Cities Asset Management Inc. You’ll find him on a vacation with his family or navigating antique cars through forgotten Texas towns.
He doesn’t worry about his clients’ finances, office drama or world affairs — confident his team has everything under control.
It’s a lesson learned from necessity. About six years ago, Rowland lost most of his hearing due to sudden hearing loss, an autoimmune condition.
“Everything sounds like its underwater,” he says. “So with hearing aids, it sounds like it’s loud underwater.”
It was a blow to the money manager, who mostly spoke over the phone with clients nationwide.
“I’ve had to relearn a lot of hearing,” he says. “It’s still almost impossible for me to talk on the phone.”
He learned to delegate tasks to his employees, which allows more family time today. And he learned to read lips.
“In a one-on-one situation, I do pretty well, unless the person’s a mumbler. Then I’m lost,” Rowland says.
Adjusting to new situations is easy for Rowland, who began his career designing computer chips and other technology at IBM Corp.
Rowland, a native of Toledo, Ohio, moved here in the late 1970s after studying engineering at the University of Cincinnati.
He moved from project to project at the company while keeping a close eye on his retirement account and real estate investments.
“I realized that over time, I was probably going to make more money each year from gains in my retirement account than anything else,” Rowland says. “I said, ‘If that’s the case, I need to understand this a bit more. I need to understand investments.’”
He began pouring over top financial newsletters and found his accounts were outperforming the advice of the experts.
“I thought, ‘How can they be the best when I’m doing better?’” Rowland says. “But I couldn’t retire from IBM, hang out a shingle, and say, ‘Hey, let me manage your money.’”
That’s when he decided to start a newsletter of his own, the All Star Investor, in the early 1990s. Within a year, he was getting calls from people around the United States asking him to manage their money.
Eventually, the intense interest from potential clients spurred Rowland to retire early from IBM and open Capital Cities Asset Management.
There, he’s learned that hiring the right people is the most important key to a successful business.
“I was able to take a three-week vacation, and it was a real vacation,” Rowland says. “I did not worry about what was going on with the company. I couldn’t have done that without having the right employees.”
The Q&A
Q: When you first noticed your hearing loss, how did you deal with it?
A: In the early days, when it was first happening, I didn’t know what was going on, and the doctors didn’t know what was going on. The first thought was, “It’s a tumor.” It felt like going up in an airplane, and your ears get clogged. You come back down and your ears don’t clear. That’s what it felt like. I kept thinking one day I’m going to yawn and my ears are going to pop and everything’s going to be back to normal. That never happened.”
Q: Did that pose a challenge to managing your business?
A: I had to face the fact that I could lose my hearing. I made some structural changes in the company to prepare for that day. I rearranged my activities, my responsibilities and had to move myself out of client contact. Most of our clients we’ve never met, unlike a lot of financial planners where they deal with local people and face-to-face stuff.
Q: What major life lesson did your parents teach that seems more true today?
A: My parents saved. They did not spend money. They did not go out. They had very modest incomes. They provided for my brother and I, and they made sure we had the things we needed. So I guess one of the things I’ve learned from them is to not live beyond my means. When I see all these stories of people and their credit card debt, I can’t comprehend that. That’s a good lesson I got from them.
Q: What are your thoughts on the state of economy?
A: The thing that surprises me most is that it took so long to reach the stage that it’s at right now. Gasoline and oil prices started rising a long time ago. The mortgage mess started a long time ago. To me, it’s surprising that the economy is just now realizing that or coming to grips with that the past few months. I’m not sure how long its going to take to work through all this.
Q: How are your clients reacting?
A: Clients never like to see the value of their account go down. When the market’s going up, they want those big gains. But when it goes down, they don’t want any losses. So this is a difficult time because the market’s not cooperating.
Q: What do you tell your clients?
A: Our approach to investing is to seek out those areas of the market that are doing better than average and concentrate in those areas. Even doing that, we cannot guarantee that every month is going to be an “up month” or every quarter is going to be an “up quarter.” But over a full market cycle, we should come out better than the market.
Q: What can you tell me about yourself that would surprise your coworkers?
A: I think I surprised them (this summer) because I‘m a fan of the Tour de France. They couldn’t believe I watched that. It’s an endurance thing. It’s not a one-day event. One lucky day doesn’t matter. That’s what I like about antique car rallying because it’s cumulative. On vacation, it’s all consuming. You have to tune out the rest of the world. To me that’s what a vacation is.
In Detail
Home town: Toledo, Ohio
Family: Jennifer, wife; Erika, daughter; Carson, son
Work experience: Computer engineer, IBM Corp.
Education: Bachelor’s in computer and electrical engineering, University of Cincinnati
Publication: Founder and executive editor of financial newsletter All Star Investor
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