Publishing a book is a team sport. My friends, family, and business associates encouraged, supported, read early versions, and plucked the book’s errant feathers. I have a long list of acknowledgments because I believe the first commandment is to be grateful.
Thank you Stephanie Martin, my wife, for abiding early mornings of writing and endless conversations of a style and grammatical sort. I most appreciate your sharing in all the little victories and defeats that turn a few ideas into a book.
Thanks to my father, Jim Martin, who has always been the sturdier writer and reader. His idea to write in a more active voice and keep it simple helped you, reader, enjoy the book more. Thank you JoAnne Martin for adding a steady, thoughtful, and human voice to our family. Thanks to my living brothers, David and Peter, and deceased brother, Chris. No one could have taught me better the science of risk management.
The best relationship I have had in the securities business has been with Girard Securities (and its predecessor firms, Sentra and Spelman). Thank you Richard P. (Dick) Woltman. And thanks to Jason Rogers—the best friend a guy can have in this business. Jason never runs out of good ideas and is willing to kick some ankles if someone tries to push around one of his reps. The entire staff at Girard I greet with hugs: Cheryl Appleby, Dominick Zizzo, Jacklyn McCray, Patti Kuhlman, John Barragan, and many others. And I am not a hugger. They are the first family in the investment industry. Special thanks for Bonnie Wusz, a CFP in Orange, California, a perennial Girard top producer, and a true professional. She read my manuscript with great care and gave me great advice, which I incorporated into the final draft.
Thank you to my Girard clients—for confidentiality sake I can’t name you! But, see if you fit this description: You have been with me many years, you have suffered through my bad ideas, and the occasional good ones, you have waited patiently for me to return your phone call, and you put up with my changing firms five times in the last 30 years. I may as well have called you by name.
Thank you to my partners at 7Twelve Advisors, LLC. Ben Doochin, Chris Radford, Rob and Alex Blagojevich, Jim Hunt, Steve Eisen, Brent Goers, Clark Liddell, and Craig Israelsen make doing the hardest thing you can do in the investment business—building product—a joy.
My thanks to the pantheon of talent who wrote endorsements for Dollarlogic. The list is a who’s who of notables in the investment industry: Susie Woltman Tietjen, Jack Tierney, Bob Huebscher, Fritz Meyer, Norb Vonnegut, Ron Delegge, Eric Falkenstein, and PhD, Victor Ricciardi.
Special thanks to Dr. Art Laffer, who wrote the Foreword. There is nothing dismal about the science that Dr. Laffer promulgates. I have been a fan of his since I studied economics in the 1980s. No economist has a clearer and more accurate vision of what blesses and befalls our material life. The Laffer Curve is one of the very few economic theories that knows no boundaries; it works in every developed nation. This fact is what demolishes his critics.
Thank you to my business coach, Dan Haile of Haile Coaching & Leadership, who has taught me that the answer is usually be respectful, be firm, be yourself. And thank you to Seawell Brandau, who mentored out of me many a bad habit.
Thank you to Dr. Aswath Damodaran at Stern School of Business at New York University. Dr. Damodaran provides for free (just because he’s a great guy and loves this stuff) endless custom market data at damodaran.com. He is a legend in finance, as evidenced by his Twitter followers—all of us market data nerds. He has also responded quickly to various questions I have had over e-mail, all the time likely wondering Who the hell is this guy Martin who keeps e-mailing me? I am a proud disciple of Dr. Damodaran’s cult.
My thanks to Gemini Fund Services and the Northern Lights Variable Trust, Andrew Rogers, Eddie Lund, and Tony Hertl, for taking a flyer on us and being at the vanguard of the alternative fund space. And thank you David Jurczak, for being the hardest-working wholesaler in the industry.
Many thanks to these industry people who helped us turn a pie chart into a mutual fund: Erik Ambrose with WallachBeth—truly one of the great guys in our business; Michael Cafiero at Cantor Fitzgerald; St. Bryce Kurfees; Ron Harkey, industry giant and wonderful human being; JoAnn Strasser, vice chair of corporate transactions and securities at Thompson Hine; Chris Winn of AdvisorAssist; Lori Powell of Nationwide; Ann Raible of Jefferson National; and Michael Reidy of Security Benefit.
Special thanks to Craig Israelsen, PhD. Craig is the most important figure in the investment industry today. There, I said it. His 7Twelve™ model’s utility is matched only by its elegance. And he has a remarkable “open source” attitude. That is, he has taught a generation of advisors to cooperate rather than compete with one another. This is better for the client, and the industry, and a better safeguard for the soul.
Thanks to the 800-pound gorilla, otherwise known as AXA. I have never seen such a big company display as much creativity and flexibility as does AXA Advisors and AXA Funds Management Group. Nor have I ever seen a harder-working sales force. Thank you Steve Joenk, Ken Kozlowski, Mike McCarthy, Graham Day, Michael Schumacher, Steve Mabry, Jack Schilt, Scott Hart, and the unstoppable John “Dartman” Wadsworth (to whom I have entrusted my family’s future). And thanks to the real workers, the road warriors of our industry: AXA wholesalers Steve Junge, Fran Doherty, Bob Stansbury, Tom Mocogni, Andy Wohl, and too many others to name. I love you guys. Wholesalers teach us advisors everything we need to know.
Thank you Nationwide Financial, Security Benefit, and Jefferson National—leaders in the financial products industry. Nationwide basically invented the multi-manager in one package approach, and Security Benefit, Jefferson National, and Nationwide have perfected it.
Thank you Todd Colburn, who for many years was my business partner and a ton of fun to work with. Many ideas and philosophies you read here are things we kicked around while playing office handball in the stairwell, or while passing the football in our coats and ties in downtown Nashville traffic while everyone else worked.
Thank you to Ryan Bartlett with Goldman Sachs in NYC. Ryan is a true gentleman, is an early supporter of 7Twelve, and can fly at any altitude.
Many thanks to the always helpful and encouraging Kyle Roy—the world’s only wholesaler who has his own custom 800 number.
After 30 years in the investment business I am sentimental. My start was with Merrill Lynch in Nashville and Manhattan. Those who always made time for my tiresome questions were Andy Spurgeon, Bill Turner, Jim Humphreys, Andy Valentine, Lewis Thompson, Morris Early, Jorge Arias (NYC), Frank Collins (NYC) who first hired me; and Sue Estep, Trish Koller, Peggy Downey, Brenda Jones, and the rest of the girls (among whom I was the only male) in operations. The girls showed me how unimportant I was and killed the little brat in me with charm and humor—a sober start in a great industry. Thank you.
My first love is literature, though you may find little evidence of that in this book. I am grateful to these hallowed professors at Vanderbilt University who taught me how to read, write, and, most of all, think: Edward Friedman, PhD, Roy Gottfried, PhD, Mark Jarman, PhD, Frank Wcislo, PhD, Chris Hassel, PhD, Leah Marcus, PhD, and John Lachs, PhD.
Thank you to Dr. Wayne and Dr. Faye Robbins—the smartest, most virtuous couple I know. Dr. Wayne Robbins was the founder of the Cockroft Forum for Free Enterprise—the most successful university-based free-enterprise executive forum in the country. And Faye is the unique historian who brings wisdom to dates and facts. I will always cherish how you two believed in me far ahead of my readiness for such trust. God bless you both.
Thank you to my assistants who helped work on this book while performing many additional research duties, especially Sophie Gao, Dalton Easterwood, and Jimmy Feeman. If you are down on Millennials or Generation Z, then you have not hired one. The world has a bright future if it is one day populated with Sophies, Daltons, and Jimmys.
Many thanks to Career Press. You have hit on a great formula and are bunch of pros. Thank you for that Young Frankenstein Gene Wilder movie moment when you looked up from the pages of my manuscript with insanity in your eyes and shouted, “It…could…work!” Thank you Michael Pye, Laurie Kelly-Pye, Adam Schwartz, Jodi Brandon (the fastest editor I have ever worked with), Jeff Piasky, Kirsten Dalley, Gina Schenck, and Nate Ohl.
Thank you to Christina Verigan for taking my jumbled box of words and pictures and turning it into something that a publisher can read.
Salute to Rob Blagojevich—the toughest guy I know and my best friend. Always encouraging, always positive. Read his spectacular book, Fundraiser A: My Fight for Freedom and Justice.
Finally, thank you very much to Debby Englander. The only reason her name appears at the end of these acknowledgments instead of the very beginning is that I am married. Debby has put up with me since 2007. Had I not met her, this book would not exist. She is a former senior editor with Wiley and is now a publishing consultant. She introduced me, thankfully, to Christina Verigan, who translated Dollarlogic to publishing-speak and introduced me to many publishers, including the fine people at Career Press.