I was raised in the Boston area andattended Boston College for math and economics. Every time I'd walk down the street in Boston I'd see companies like Merrill Lynch, Dean Witter, E.F. Hutton, and Bache, many of which don't even exist anymore. I was steered toward this industry when I attended the University of Chicago for business school, where everything came together for me. I roomed with Gus Sauter, now managing director and chief investment officer of Vanguard.

I joined the finance group at Dean Witter in 1982. If I remember correctly, the NYSE broke 100 million shares that year. The pace and change of technology since then has been amazing. We literally would type a spreadsheet on an IBM Selectric typewriter. Someone would change a number and we'd have to retype the whole thing. I'm still stunned that in the middle of giving a speech I can call someone, ask that a slide be changed, and the person at the other end can hit a button and make the new slide appear almost instantaneously.

I'm a high energy person. I love the pace of this industry and the excitement. Half of this business is having a positive mental attitude. I tell advisors that no revenue starts at headquarters, it starts in the field. When the market fell in 2008, senior advisors and I agreed that although they might have been beaten down, they just had to have a strategy, put one foot in front of the other and move forward.

I travel from 35% to 50% of the time, visiting branches, talking to advisors and seeing clients. A friend who's a chef actually taught me a lesson about attention to detail. Now my door is always open. Any advisor or customer service assistant can email or call me and expect an answer. Advisors used to say their questions weren't always answered. Now I tell people at headquarters I expect them to not only return these calls, but to do it by close of business unless one came after 2 p.m. If an advisor is talking with a client and needs an answer, he or she doesn't want to hear back two days later.

I've had a great career. I've run national sales and the products, and I was also briefly president. We're building what we think is a great business. After the market downturn, it was clear that clients need a high-quality person to guide them. We believe the depth and breadth of our research is unequaled, as well as our products and services.

My hobbies are food, wine and travel. I ran a marathon as a kid, and when I was 45 a friend challenged me to do another. I went from not jogging for 25 years to running four marathons between ages 45 and 50.

As told to Pat Olsen.