Welcome to this week's conversation with Jim Getz! Check out below for highlights from our conversation. Thank you for joining us!
Please check out and subscribe to my Youtube Channel and Newsletter!
JOSH KLOOZ, CFP®, MBA
WEALTH ADVISOR
Phone 281.719.0036
Text 281.699.8691
Fax 281.719.0156
jklooz@carsonwealth.com
1780 Hughes Landing | Suite 570
The Woodlands, TX 77380
Music by bensound.com
Welcome to this week's conversation with Jim Getz! Check out below for highlights from our conversation. Thank you for joining us!
Please check out and subscribe to my Youtube Channel and Newsletter!
JOSH KLOOZ, CFP®, MBA
WEALTH ADVISOR
Phone 281.719.0036
Text 281.699.8691
Fax 281.719.0156
jklooz@carsonwealth.com
1780 Hughes Landing | Suite 570
The Woodlands, TX 77380
Music by bensound.com
Hello and welcome in again to the Wisdom and Wealth podcast. Today is another of our Intangible Balance Sheets series, and today I have the distinct pleasure of introducing to you all Jim Getz. Jim, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the podcast.
Jim Getz:Delighted to be here with you today, josh, looking forward to it.
Josh Klooz:Jim, for our newer listeners, just as a brief introduction, we call these episodes the Intangible Balance Sheet because they focus on the ideas and principles which have guided our life to this point. And you know I've always joked that we're just all all of us at some level, are a little bit irrational financially. There are certain experiences in my life that I look back on that given any amount of money I wouldn't trade those experiences because of what they revealed to me about myself and just how meaningful they were to me in an intangible way. And so these conversations are a way of uncovering the stories that kind of bring our first principles and our life principles and life lessons to life, you know, to life. And so before we dive in, would you mind introducing yourself just briefly to our audience, and then we'll dive into the more formal conversation.
Jim Getz:Yeah, I would enjoy doing that. And I'll give you a little bit about my background. I'm originally from Philadelphia, pennsylvania, and gravitated out here to Pittsburgh about 36 years ago when I was in Philadelphia. I actually taught for another number of years for four years at a high school and also at a community college, and my background is particularly in the liberal arts. I was a history history major and then also got a master's degree in history, and I can say, if you look at my educational background, I've never taken a business course or an accounting type course in my life and for the most part I've learned this business through osmosis by actually doing it.
Jim Getz:The way I gravitated into the financial service business, my wife was a nurse.
Jim Getz:Her doctor had a party at her home one evening and the head of a bank in Philadelphia was at that party. Well, by the name of Billy, billy Eglson, who was the CEO there of a bank called Gerard, which later became Mellon Bank, and we began talking and at that time banks had training programs. So he mentioned it to me and then, apparently from the doctor, got my telephone number and called me in a few days later and asked me if I had thought about it. And I looked at that time, my wife and I were living in an apartment that we were paying $99 a month for one bedroom apartment with two children, so I figured I had to do something to expand my life, so I opted for their training program, and now today I have a bank that I founded some 17 years ago and now it's a $20 billion plus bank and it's a limited purpose bank that, essentially, when I showed up for work one day, I was the only person, and now we have a little over 425 people working here and assets of $20 billion.
Josh Klooz:So, you know, it's moments like this where I look at the constraints of time and I'm a little bit sad because I'm sure that we won't be able to uncover all the stories that fall between point A and point B of that brief introduction, but I'm excited to unpack some of them as we go along. Before we dive into your career, specifically in your life story, are there any stories that come to you and your family from your grandparents that are pivotal to you?
Jim Getz:Yeah, my grandfather was an architect in Philadelphia and if you drive around Philadelphia he was also a. His wife were very staunch Catholics and he was able to develop. If you look at the, he was a builder but more of an architect on the design side. And if you drive through Philadelphia, there's a considerable number of Catholic churches. If they were built in the 50s and the 60s when most of them were built and the Catholic school system also, he was the architect involved in that. And then there was an Irishman by the name of McCormick that in fact was the contractor and they were able to develop most of the schools and the churches.
Jim Getz:And when I go back there I quite often like to just go into those churches because they look a lot different than churches that have been built recently. And those churches sort of have his signature on it and he used to essentially work out of his home. His wife was his assistant and he would negotiate with the cardinal or the bishop of the diocese the building of these various churches. And so I always I took a different path but I was still involved in building something at our company that I learned from him of the detail and the need to surround yourself with the right people.
Josh Klooz:So would it be fair to say that some of the entrepreneurial seeds that you harvested and built upon start there, from his example?
Jim Getz:Yeah, I would say, josh, that my life has been somewhat of an entrepreneurial journey that I've taken and learned from other people and quite often I suggest to people that it's more valuable to listen and to speak, and I've been able to meet a lot of successful people and I listened to what their ideas were and how they developed their own life over the years.
Josh Klooz:Now, with regard to your parents, are there any stories or influences from their lives that were formative for you at a young age or even as you grew up?
Jim Getz:My father was a salesman for a steel company and I learned an awful lot from him with regard to the need to develop relationships with people and whether it was in steel or financial service which I've spent most of my career in and you're spending your career in that regard he was an individual that was very much interested. If he was on the road, he was gonna have breakfast, lunch and dinner with people and then meet with people in between and then the necessary follow-up and execution that's involved in that. And if you look closely at the company we have today, it's very much of our products are not that complicated and it's very much of a distribution company that we have some very strong, seasoned people that are working for us that know the product and are able to address it with their clients and develop a rapport with their clients.
Josh Klooz:Now you mentioned your start, in kind of an introduction to the financial services industry. Would you mind telling us about some of your early on mentors that you still look back on and you can see different threads in? I don't know if you're like me, but you'll hear different conversations in your head that you've heard many years ago and you're like, oh, that's where that idea started or that's how that came about.
Jim Getz:The person that had the most impact on me is a fellow by the name of John Dunnew who was also a founder of a company called Federated Investors. It's a very large today it's about a $700 million plus mutual fund company and would separately manage the accounts also, and he started that from scratch, just like I've started this company. But he had more of an incentive than I did. He had 12 children, he had been in the military during World War I as a pilot at that point and made it through World War I mean World War II and then came back to the United States and he really didn't have a professional though he had gone to West Point, but he had been in the military the whole time and decided that he wanted to start a company, and he started working for a company that doesn't exist today.
Jim Getz:He spent about two years there and decided he was gonna do this on his own and put together his own broker dealer operation that evolved into a mutual fund company and started hiring people, and he gave me a clear understanding of the type of individuals that he was looking for. And he also understood his own weaknesses and wanted to surround himself with people that could fill that vacuum where he didn't feel comfortable being involved in and he knew if he was gonna build a money management firm, he needed professional managers and he needed analysts and he needed accountants and things along that particular line. He was a very effective salesman and he filled with other people where he felt his weaknesses, where even when he was just starting the company at that point, and he was able to take this company from nothing to what it is today a multi-billion dollar entity and one of the top five mutual fund companies in the country.
Josh Klooz:So there's one thought I had along the way. You're about the second or third person that I've talked to in this series of conversations that started teaching, and it occurs to me that there's a lot of sales acumen in teaching just because of the ability that you have to have to listen, understand and gain rapport with students and pass on information. Do you see that thread as well, or do you see similarities to sales roles in teaching at any level? Or is that just me?
Jim Getz:No, I think that's a very good observation because in teaching, a lot of it has to do with communication.
Jim Getz:You want to look every day at improving yourself and Compounding that day after day and in a teaching environment.
Jim Getz:I thought at the college level, I thought at the At the high school level, and it's a different type of experience.
Jim Getz:You're dealing with people that hopefully have matured a bit more when they're in college versus high school, but you have to keep their attention from the stand standpoint of also wanting to communicate with them in a way that they're going to have a learning experience and with your client in the Marketplace. You want to educate them and you want them to have a clear understanding that you know what you're talking about and you can. You want to take yourself and take them to a different level and a consistent, ongoing On ongoing basis and you want to develop a relationship with them and your students that you're working with. It helps to have a good rapport with them absolutely and they respect you at that point and I have some students that I taught in in high school that, in fact, the head of the Chamber of Commerce here in a pencil it Pennsylvania was one of one of my students and he calls me up. I hadn't spoken to him in 25 years.
Jim Getz:When he when he heard about there was an article in the Philadelphia inquire and us founding this bank, and saw my picture and and said tell me how you did this that is so neat.
Josh Klooz:So I want to get into that kind of your, the seeds of your entrepreneurial Journey in and starting the bank. But before we get there and before we get off sales, I have to ask you know, there's one sale that everybody you know Sometimes and you'd mentioned your family earlier how did you meet your wife and talk, taught me through you know how you met and your relationship there?
Jim Getz:Sure, I've been married now for 53 years, so it worked and and and and and in that regard, and in college I Was pretty focused. I needed to support myself. Plus, I was on a scholarship that had a had to keep a certain certain Certain levels, so I took it very seriously. I didn't make a date much. My college roommate had a very good girlfriend that he ultimately married and they she was a nurse, my, and she was my wife's roommate. They had a ball that was going on at the nursing school and Her boyfriend wasn't able to able to go to it and so her roommate convinced her to invite me and so I Was a blind date essentially, and that and that regard, and so we had about a two-year courtship and actually we got married before they did and and and that correct. And I guess I was 22 when I got married, 23 right out of college at that point, and she was about the the same age.
Josh Klooz:Do you remember some of the the topics that you Broke the ice with in your first conversations at all, or does any of that come back to you, or is that? Is that a blur?
Jim Getz:well, I Think the attraction was more on my part than her said. The very beginning I was a boy scout also and in fact I became a Eagle scout, eagle scout and I was very much in Nate and interested in Nature and trees and things along that particular line and that wasn't necessarily a focus of hers. And when you meet someone it's a stranger or whatever. You want to try to make conversation and so I don't think she was that attracted to me initially in that regard.
Josh Klooz:Well, hey, it worked out though, right so?
Jim Getz:that's right. It absolutely, absolutely didn't work out for both of us at this point.
Josh Klooz:So, jim, you've mentioned, you know and alluded to that, some of the success that the bank has had. Is there a moment that you remember that stands out to you, when you said yourself hey, I have to do this on my own. Is there any type of Genesis story where the idea occurred to you and it starts to take root in your mind and and then becomes a reality?
Jim Getz:Yeah, I would say so. It federated. I went through different type of activities. They hired me actually to start a trust company for them. The trust company still exists today. It was very much of a limited trust company. We have a limited bank here at this time. We're not a full service bank. We don't spend a lot of time advertising, getting our names out there, whatever, and we have a select target audience.
Jim Getz:What we did at the bank that I put together for federated investors is we had guaranteed investment contracts. They're essentially issued by the portfolio that's issued by the insurance companies. It's like a bank CD, but a fairly large one, used mostly for retirement purposes. It's a fixed rate type of product. We put together a common trust fund in that regard and went out to the bank trust departments throughout the country to distribute that particular product, built the bank, took care of all the regulatory issues, hired the administrative people to take care of it and then went out to raise the money. I was the sole salesman and the CEO of the trust company. Today that product has a couple billion dollars of assets and still functioning at federated investors here in Pittsburgh. I was able to put that together. That always stuck with me, but I stayed at federated for 22 years because I ultimately moved down here to Pittsburgh and ran their sales organization. We came apart of their senior executive group At that time.
Jim Getz:Federated, over its history, went through various gyrations of corporate structure. It was closely held just by John Dunio that I mentioned earlier. Then it was traded on the pink sheets Initially. Then they bought it back and then they took it public again. They sold it to the insurance company and then it's public today on the New York Stock Exchange. We took it public again to get on the New York Stock Exchange. It's been public ever since then. I was the one conducting a lot of the presentations during that period of time when we're raising the capital. I really did have a lot of experience in that regard about building something, raising capital and things along that particular line. As you know, banks are very capital intensive. We went out and, for our company, raised $104 million of capital in which to this day was the largest raise-up of any startup bank DeNova Bank in the history of the FDIC at that point.
Josh Klooz:One of the things, Jim, that stands out to me is you had a really successful career From an entrepreneurial perspective. Sometimes, I think there can be the perception that there are certain floodgates that you have to meet or certain windows that you have to meet in your life's career. If you don't meet those, just based off of what you've seen other people do, based in their lifetime and for whatever reason, there tends to be a lot of pressure to do things in your 30s or your 40s. If I'm correct, this was fairly recent. But what were some of those decision points in your own mind of, hey, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to start this organization? Can you walk us through some of that?
Jim Getz:Yeah, a lot of it is. I saw what John Noneu was able to accomplish for himself and his family from a wealth standpoint, but also the quality of life that he was able to develop and also have an impact on a community like Pittsburgh, where he was very generous from a charitable standpoint and very active in the community and raised 12 children. To the time when my wife and I went to his funeral. At that point he had 124 grandchildren and a few great grandchildren and a few great grandchildren. In that regard, I wanted to expand my life a bit and I had a clear understanding of the type of people I'd like to surround myself with from listening and observing, to be quite honest. And so here, 18 years later, we have a company that is committed to the community here, that we have people that are well from a pay kit standpoint. We have individuals that are paid well. We've differentiated the company from the other banking institutions here and we've been able to cut out a business that we don't really have a lot of formidable competition in.
Josh Klooz:Now you've mentioned the types of people that John wanted to surround himself with and some of the principles of hiring. It occurs to me that there's a lot of overlap whether you're hiring somebody or whether you're just surrounding yourself with the team of people that you want to build your life with. Could you share some of those overarching principles with us?
Jim Getz:Yeah, you want to really know yourself and your strengths and your weaknesses and you want to surround yourself with people that can fill that weakness. And the weakness is either a job you've once done before in your life and you never want to do it again, or it's a job that you don't even want to try but you know that it's necessary from that perspective and you want to have top-notch people. I was blessed in the fact that it federated. Being a money management firm, I learned that equity is the engine of wealth and so I accumulated a lot of their stock. To be quite honest, I've only had three stocks in my life other than mutual funds and things along that particular line, and that was federated stock. And then I converted that over to tri-state capital stock and then, as you know, we recently, about a year and a half ago, sold the company to Raymond James and now I have Raymond James stock and I'm just a believer in that and having a concentration in something which you can touch, feel and are involved in that regard.
Josh Klooz:Now, are there any other business principles and or life principles that you wouldn't mind sharing with us along the way as you've built the company and seen it grow through different iterations?
Jim Getz:Yeah, I could, I'd be more than glad to share that with you, because the way that as I mentioned earlier that I learned it was listening to other people and a couple of things that I've learned at Leith and on what I would call this entrepreneurial journey. One tends to learn more from your mistakes than your successes in life, and it has an impact on you. And, from a practical standpoint, business is essentially what I would characterize as a common sense type of situation, and so I could provide you with what my formula for success has always been, and it's just simply a couple of points.
Jim Getz:You want to outwork everyone else, and what I mean and that is to me, is critical to put in the time, and you also want to realize that working is a learning experience.
Jim Getz:And you want to out improve everyone else, because you want to not just start your business like I went out and raised $104 million of capital. You want to continually take it to another level. You also want to out strategize everyone else and realize there's several moves ahead and in building something like a business, it's not a game of checkers, it's a game of chess, and you have to recognize that and look at it that way. And you want to out test everyone else. To do it you need to have the endurance, you have to have a positive state of mind and you have to keep alert and focused on your game so it becomes a bit of a lifelong learning experience and embrace what has to be what I would characterize an endless type of curiosity, and realize that winning consists of working hard and getting better every day and watching the improvement essentially compound, like you do your bank account or your savings account, and sometimes it just takes pure strength, sheer force of will.
Josh Klooz:In that regard, so, jim, you mentioned two things that I want to circle back to the positive state of mind. Would you mind sharing with us any secrets that you have found along the way that redirect you when you're tempted to doubt or attempted to not be as positive or, as even you know, cheerful as you would like to be?
Jim Getz:Right. I think what you want to do is, when you find yourself in a negative state, read deeply and change your approach and place more of your attention on the solution the solution and not on the issue. It's as simple as that and it works. At least, it works for me.
Josh Klooz:And then the other piece. I think I would attribute it back to your liberal arts training. But endless curiosity, that's something that I believe you probably have to foster throughout your life and it takes some effort developing. But what are some of the keys that you've found to maintaining your just curious, natural curious state?
Jim Getz:Okay, I will tell you another person that I've learned from. I never met this person, winston Churchill, and I have a at my office at home. I have a quote from him and he's had many quotes. But he talks about success and he talks about failure. And he says success is not final, and he's right about that. You know, I looked at building this bank and I look at it now. It's a $20 billion bank and I ask myself what needs to exist to take it to $50 to $100 billion. And one of his quotes he says success is not final and failure is not fatal. And you have to remember that because you're going to have some setbacks in doing this. And he also goes on to say the courage, it is the courage to continue the counts, the courage to just keep at it and have the endurance to move forward. So success is no accident, but it's never an ending situation that you have to keep at, ongoing over and over and over again. It just doesn't end in one moment.
Josh Klooz:Yeah, thank you for that. I appreciate you taking my additional questions. I'm always curious when it comes to that. So the last portion of our discussion, jim, typically revolves around what some people would call your ethical will and maybe even your eulogy to a degree. Are there elements that, as you think about your life, that you want to be a part of your eulogy, and how you want to be remembered, that you wouldn't mind sharing with us today?
Jim Getz:Well, as I might have mentioned you the other day when we were talking about having this session, I'm 76 years of age and I'm not reflecting on my eulogy, but the fact of the matter is, you know, I do have some standards that I have in life and that are very, very meaningful To me, and it's what I would call the three F's. It's friends, it's family and it's the. And it's fun Okay, and you want to have that. And friendship it's friends, it's family, it's friendship in that regard, and faith is part of it. So, when you have your family, that should be your first priority and thinking about what impacts them Okay, and your faith is a belief in the unseen. And whatever your faith happens to be, you want to believe in the future? Okay, and there is a future, and your friends allow you for a lot of diversification and stimulation, and friendship means an awful lot, and I think those three F's are quite, quite important.
Josh Klooz:Thank you so much, Jim, for your time today. This is. I've learned a lot myself along the way, and I'm sure that others will. We really appreciate this opportunity to learn from you and to hear more about your story Anything else that we should cover or we haven't gotten to before we sign off today?
Jim Getz:No, I think we've really covered a broad operation of ideas and essentially I've provided you with a formula. Now you have to execute on it.
Josh Klooz:Absolutely. Jim know that we're wishing you, your family and your team nothing but truth, beauty and goodness and the road ahead. Thank you so much for your time today.
Jim Getz:Great Bye now.