It’s been almost twenty-seven years since Texas Lutheran University alum Dave Sather ’89 founded Sather Financial Group, Inc. in Victoria, Texas.
“When I started, I was all by myself,” he recalls. At the time, he had eight years of experience in the field to recommend him, coupled with his BA in Business Management from TLU and his MBA from Texas A&M. So, he opened for business as a firm of one person.
A few former clients went along for the ride, and Sather made smart decisions business-wise, so the firm consistently grew, and eventually was able to sustain more employees. “Even then, for the first ten years, we were a firm of three,” he says. “We stayed very small to keep our costs down and remain nimble.”
Believe it or not, that little firm with its big ideas is now the 4th largest Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) based in Texas—the only one not located in a major metropolitan area. And as this year’s fourth quarter dawned, Sather Financial Group was informed that CNBC included the firm in its top 100 in the nation for the second time.
To put that into context, there are 40,563 RIA firms in the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s regulatory database. Making it to the top 100 is a serious measure of exclusivity, to say the least. Sather Financial Group came in at number 60.
In addition to that accolade, the firm, which now also has an office in New Braunfels, was named in the July issue of Financial Advisor magazine as one of the top RIAs in the nation based upon assets under management. This marks the nineteenth time the firm has received that distinction.
“It puts a big smile on my face,” says Sather. “It is a nice affirmation that what we do has been important. When you can quantifiably measure success, and know you helped people along the way, it is a great feeling. It is a little surreal that we manage more than $2 billion. It has been a phenomenal run.”
Sather says the firm’s success just spurs him to work even harder. And one of the recipients of his hard work is his alma mater.
He is a member of the TLU Board of Regents, chair of the Investment Committee, and founder of Bulldog Investment Company, which he established in 2009. The organization is an award-winning on-campus program designed to teach students of all majors how to read and interpret financial statements and manage an investment portfolio. In turn, Big Dog Endowment, created and funded by Sather along with wife and fellow TLU alum Carol Klages, inspires philanthropy by creating the unique opportunity for student managers, alongside their mentors, to manage, evaluate, and distribute funds to worthy causes. Through the program, significant funds have been channeled to organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Save the Children, UNICEF, and the American Red Cross.
To deepen the Sather Group’s ties to TLU even further, currently, eight out of ten of the members of Sather’s investment team are TLU alumni—and even the two who didn’t graduate from TLU are involved on campus through volunteering and mentoring students.
“When Jon Zahradka, one of my first students at TLU, said he wanted to work for us upon graduation, I thought he was a little crazy,” Sather recalls. This was back when Sather Financial Group was still a firm of only three people—and Zahradka was married and had obligations of his own. “But he opened my eyes to what was possible in terms of attracting top talent. Jon has now been with us sixteen years and he is an owner of the firm. It has worked out better than I could have imagined.”
Through the years, other TLU graduates have followed in Zahradka’s footsteps. After all, they get to know Sather through Bulldog Investment Company and the internships the firm offers in the summer and throughout the year—and he gets to know them. “They show up, they work hard, and they are accountable. As such, they gain critical experience working in an office, collaborating with teammates, and solving problems for clients,” Sather explains. “Because of this, these students, who become team members, are productive on their first day. And there are very few surprises in how we work or what we expect.”
In the back of the office, Sather keeps a timeline that tracks the history of the firm and the growth of its assets. “Every time I added a TLU grad, great things happened. Even those TLU students who ended up leaving were major contributors.”
Sather says that “if it were not for the TLU ‘farm club,’ the firm would be much smaller, and the quality of service and strategic planning would not be nearly what it is today.”