Years in Securities Business: 30

I grew up in McHenry, Illinois,the third of six children. During summer breaks in high school and college, I worked at our community bank. My father, the bank president, was my first boss. I did different jobs there: teller, receptionist and even handling the switchboard when necessary. (Being related to the boss didn't matter much.)

In 1978, I graduated from Marquette University with a B.A. in political science and a minor in business. I thought about a career in law, but I ended up taking an entry position for First Wisconsin Trust Company. Gary Elfe, the research director, had arrived six months before. He was working on a futures and options project, and I researched the topic of duration. With our combined work, we found that we could describe the price sensitivity of a single bond or a bond portfolio to changes in interest rates.

In the early 1980s, we launched a bond immunization strategy to fund pension liability streams. Essentially, we performed an asset/liability match. In late 1979, interest rates began to get very volatile. Looking back, the combination of having this tool and being in an environment where we were trained to manage risk was hugely helpful.

In 1983, I was still working toward my MBA and the CFA designation when my boss was recruited to Chase Bank and I was given the top job at First Wisconsin.

I was there for a total of 21 years and left in 2000 to join Baird, which was in the same building, and my team moved with me. We only had to use a different elevator. We started Baird Advisors with the Baird pension plan as our first client with $18 million. Today we manage $14 billion in fixed income assets.

I thought that any customers who were going to follow me would have done so by now, but I heard from an investor in Iowa out of the blue recently who wants to start a new relationship with us after nine years.

I'm the first woman to chair the Board of Trustees at Marquette University, my alma mater. It was long overdue. It's been 100 years since the school started accepting women.

 

As told to Pat Olsen.