The Family Circus comic strip often uses dotted lines to depict a wandering path from Point A to Point B, a meandering path filled with brief stops and side trips.  Often the comic strip’s dotted lines show that the journey is often the reward.
 

“My original major was in chemistry, but like everyone, I changed majors two or three times,” said Reynolds, laughing while recalling his initial career aspirations.  “I actually started school on an ROTC scholarship, choosing USF over the Coast Guard, UCLA, and opportunities at West Point.”

“For a while thought I might be an attorney.  Then I thought I’d be a plastic surgeon and went to study medicine, but nothing enthralled me,” he said, noting that he was a full-time student who worked full-time in the restaurant industry.  “I was also a political science major at one point before finally choosing to study finance.”

“What did interest me most was working at Outback Steakhouse,” he said, saying that he envisioned becoming a partner with the restaurant, which had just opened its third location at the time.  “I obviously didn’t end up doing that, but working in the industry while going to school full-time played a big part of my career success.”

Today, publicly traded restaurant companies and executives are a niche market for his wealth management practice, the Reynolds Group @ Morgan Stanley.  Reynolds’ group offers customized investment advice and specializes in providing solutions for affluent clients seeking grow, preserve and transition their wealth. 

According to Reynolds, successful advisors are multi-taskers who know how build relationships and prioritize tasks.  Reynolds credits his restaurant background with teaching him these skills.  He also says the most successful advisors know how to manage an organization, both in terms of employees and finances.  “USF taught me that,” he said.

“When you walk in a business like this one, you are building a business from the ground floor,” he continued, saying that the most top producers in the wealth management field understand bottom-line profitability; they understand more than just the financial part of the business.

 “I gained an understanding of bottom-line profitability because of USF’s Strategic Management course.   There were a lot of different disciplines (finance, marketing, management, and accounting) mixed together,” he recalls, noting that groups of five spent an entire semester working on a project.  “We looked at a small company from its beginning, analyzed it, and made recommendations on how we could make it better.  I learned a lot about other areas of business in this course.”

Reynolds cites six key lessons he learned from this class and  his career, as lessons every business student should learn:

• Look at the big task, but start small.  “One thing we learned in that Strategic Management class – and I still believe – is to take a huge issue or huge task and break it down into smaller manageable sections.  It is so much easier to excel this way instead of trying to tackle the whole problem and complete it as one big challenge.”
• Adages such as “no free lunches” and “always put the client first” ring true.  “If something seems too good to be true, it is.  To this day, I ask myself ‘if I had the funds or had the same goals in a wealth management plan, would I do this for my family?’  If the answer is no, I don’t make the recommendation.”
• Mentors matter.  “While I was in the training program at Merrill Lynch, my mentor (a USF grad) brought me into his financial team and showed me how a practice ran.  I was able to seek out his knowledge and expertise daily as I worked towards goals for clients.”
• Take advantage of networking opportunities.  “Success truly comes from the opportunities USF provides both undergrads and alumni.  Whether through the business school, continuing education, sports, or whatever, there is some type of program you can be involved with – and the interaction tightens your bond, especially those cross-career networking opportunities.”
• Give back.  “Helping to grow USF as a prominent business school is something I would like to be part of for the rest of my life.  I have a strong desire to help the athletic programs.  My family’s idea of success would be to be able to endow several scholarships at USF in different areas of the university.”
• Well-rounded vs. well-read is an easy choice.   “A 3.8 GPA is great, but I would hire someone with extracurricular activities and better-rounded resume over a 3.8 student who never worked or took part in philanthropic activities.  I want someone who is smart, but I also want someone who is involved, has taken on leadership roles,  and can help grow an organization.  Well-rounded people are the most sought-after hires.”