"For me, "says Dan Gensler, "California has always been the golden land." Certainly, it has been a land of opportunity for the Wisconsin native who, in 1987 at the age of 23, loaded all his belongings into his'79 Buick Regal and left Racine to seek his fortune there.
Today The Gensler Group, located on Coronado Island off San Diego, is a thriving, fee-based, private wealth management firm with a dedicated team of 12 serving roughly 500 affluent households with $187 million in assets under management. Moreover, his highly regarded business includes his affiliation as a branch manager with Linsco/Private Ledger which ranks him in its top 1 percent based on fees and production--and brings The Gensler Group's assets under advisement to $250 million.
So how did he get from there to here?
The journey actually started even a bit earlier, when he decided to major in finance during his sophomore year of college. Gensler recalls that he deeply admired a broker friend of his parents named Roy Smith, who subsequently become his mentor. After college, Gensler approached a brokerage firm in Chicago which sponsored him while he obtained his NASD Series 7 license. But the sparkle of a new job wore off quickly as he discovered that the penny stock trading business violated his sense of honor. He spent the next four months knocking on dozens of doors, trying to secure a job as a stock broker in Chicago, Milwaukee and all points in-between. He came up empty-handed.
"In the end, I realized that the banks, insurance companies and brokerage firms simply weren't willing to invest in training me. I had no obligations--such as a mortgage, wife and kids--outside of work that would keep me tied down," he says. "I was young, single and needed a job. It was hard to not become discouraged."
A great uncle who lived in southern California learned of the young man's plight. "He invited me to move there, to try my luck in California and stay with him," Gensler recalls. The uncle introduced him to his local branch banker at Home Savings of America, a major financial institution in southern California. The banker made an introduction to someone in the bank's brokerage department, Griffin Financial Services. Within one week of arriving, Gensler was working for Griffin. His first office was next to the mail room--stuffing envelopes with trade confirmations--but his career took off from there: The next step was the trading desk and from there to sales and financial services. In fact, once in California, Gensler was like a fish in water. Over the next four years, he excelled at Home Savings until he was responsible for the largest branch (based on assets) in its nationwide system of 350 branches. During this period, he also earned his CFP marks and,through the College for Financial Planning, began working on his Master's of Science in Financial Planning with a concentration in wealth management which he completed in 1994.
In 1990, Gensler's former CFP teacher recruited him for TSI Financial, a start-up firm that would provide financial planning services at small financial institutions. "The T was for tax, the S stood for Securities and the I was for insurance," says Gensler. "I loved it because I was doing financial planning."
But after almost five years, the love affair ended when Gensler realized that the three TSI principals had "nine toes in retirement" and weren't interested in growing the business. In 1995, Gensler left to establish The Gensler Group. Actually, starting his own business was a natural step: Entrepreneurialism has deep roots in the Gensler Family. Gensler's father and both grandfathers were successful entrepreneurs.
Gensler did not leave TSI Financial empty-handed. He took with him his first institutional client and the opportunity to manage a new financial planning program at Point Loma Credit Union. That relationship lasted 11 years. His next major client was the Vista Federal Credit Union which served cast members of The Walt Disney Company. This breakthrough started as a three-year relationship and ended nine years later when the credit union decided that their affairs had grown to a point where it would be best for them to manage the program internally. Gensler's independent financial business was off and running--but there was still something missing: His passion to build a financial advisory and life planning firm that would serve individuals and families with complex planning issues.
With that in mind, in 2001 he moved his office to downtown San Diego. Eighteen months later, two Gensler Group advisors who had been working out of the Point Loma Credit Union branch office, joined Gensler at the downtown office.
For the next year and a half, Gensler worked with these two loyal, long-term associates in search of a common future vision. Ultimately Gensler presented them with an equity stake offer in the firm. Much to his surprise, both advisors were fearful of losing their independence and declined the equity choice. That provoked Gensler's first "aha" moment: He realized that his name was on the door and it was his job to define his own future.
It was time, he decided, to really research and study the financial planning industry and where it was heading. It was through that research that Gensler made two life-altering discoveries. The first was the Kinder Institute's life planning approach. The second was Dimensional Funds and their belief in efficient markets and passive investing.
The Kinder Institute was a revelation to Gensler because it focused on the human side of financial planning "Using a mix of professional and relationship skills is by far the best way to provide financial advice," he explains. Gensler spent a year honing his skills, going through Kinder training and mentoring programs; he finally earned his RLP (Registered Life Planner) designation in 2007.
Gensler's next defining moment was the discovery of Dimensional Funds whose approach deeply impressed him. It took nine months for him to become an approved advisor and gain access to the DFA funds. "Their investing process is based on financial research and science. It sees markets as an ally, not an adversary," he says. "Rather than trying to take advantage of the ways markets are mistaken, Dimensional tries to take advantage of the ways markets are. Or stated differently, Dimensional believes in competition. Companies compete with each other for investment capital, and millions of investors compete with each other to find the most attractive returns. This competition quickly drives prices to fair value, creating a situation where investors should only expect greater returns if they are willing to bear greater risk."
In 2006, Gensler moved his office to Coronado Island where business has been very good. In 2007, The Gensler Group--a California Registered Investment Advisor--made one trade magazine's Top 100 Advisors List. As an LPL affiliate, for the 11th consecutive year he has earned the right to attend LPL's annual Summit Meeting for top producers.
Gensler spends a significant amount of time creating and polishing strategy documents that will help him realize his vision. "My ideal day is to get to the gym at 5:30 am and be at my desk by 7:00. Next, I spend some time in meditation, on my spiritual journey," he says. "Staff starts arriving around 7:30, and the work day begins." To this day, he still has a passion for growth His goal, he says, "is to have over $1 billion in assets under management in 10 years."
But at the age of 45, the route he plans to take to achieve that goal sounds more like a mission than a business plan.
The Gensler approach is to employ a combination of financial and life planning to help clients unearth and then achieve their life's goals. He and his team deploy an efficient investment process to the firm's asset allocation strategies. While he is skilled at the art of financial planning, Gensler says he finds his greatest joy in helping clients live a rich and full life, in every sense. "When I can take a client to a place at their heart's core, where they can open up, where we can develop a bond of trust--a personal place where sometimes even their spouses have never been--and help them discover what's really important to them, what their dream of freedom is, those are the moments that are most precious to me. It makes all the effort worthwhile. Together we create a safe space where dreams can truly set sail."
Marie Swift has been studying "best practices" of top advisors in the financial services industry for nearly 20 years. She is president of Impact Communications, Inc. (www.impactcommunications.org).
