I grew up outside of Washington, D.C. My father was a doctor and cancer researcher, and three of my brothers and sisters became doctors. I was the black sheep. At dinner, my siblings would be talking about science experiments and I'd be talking about General Electric's stock price.

When I was in middle school, my dad got me a job milking cows three days a week. It was a dirty job. My hands would reek afterward, and I'd sit at the kitchen table soaking them in soapy water. But my dad knew I was interested in finance and he supported that.

When I was in high school, he introduced me to a broker who let me look at Moody's and Standard & Poor's publications in his office. I read about the famous economists, and I decided I wanted to study economics. I chose the University of Chicago because Milton Friedman taught there.

I wanted to work on Wall Street during the summer when I was in college, so I wrote to a number of firms and Kidder Peabody hired me to work in the mail department. After a few weeks, I convinced the head of research that I could do some computer programming and improve their analytics. Desktop computing was just coming into use at the time.

Then investment banking intrigued me, so I asked about changing departments. After I graduated (and after tooling around Europe for a while), I took a full-time job with the company. I had hoped to work in New York, but they sent me back to Chicago. I got to know the city more than I had as an undergrad and fell in love with it.

But there were still challenges in getting the guys more tech savvy. When I arrived, the bankers had a personal computer but it was kept in the closet. I was able to help them improve the efficiency of their financial analysis.

Later I decided I wanted to get a graduate business degree from Harvard. So I moved to Boston and spent the summers working at a private equity firm. I valued that experience, but decided to return to Kidder after school for a more diverse experience. There, I'd be working with numerous companies in different industries. I felt I still had a lot to learn and could accelerate that process at Kidder.

I found a great mentor in Paul Purcell, who is now Baird's chief executive officer. I worked for him from 1987 to 1994, when he and I and another colleague left for Baird. I soon became a managing director in Baird's investment banking group. In 1999 I moved over to run the private equity group. To date, Baird Private Equity has raised about $2.5 billion. We have 80 professionals in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

There is significant pain and wealth destruction in the industry today, but economic theory says that the world operates in cycles. Though painful, these down cycles can be healthy. When values and the markets rise linearly, it becomes difficult to create return. But volatility creates opportunity. The financial system will emerge stronger and healthier and a lot of the excess will be washed out. Companies that weather these challenging times will be stronger for it, and that is how we will sell them for more money.

I've found that life offers enriching personal experiences outside the U.S. When our first child was born with special needs, it taught us how special life can be, and we decided that there are many children around the world who also needed help. I was first exposed to China when my wife and I adopted a daughter there in 1994. We also adopted our son, who is half-Hispanic, from Wyoming. He's our cowboy.As told to Pat Olsen