The American Experience- Dave Shuttleworth

The American Experience

When it finally came time to write an essay on an American dreamer, visionary, or eccentric I knew immediately who would be perfect for the project. David Shuttleworth is my adoptive father and he is currently an Investment Advisor. His current company Shuttleworth & Co. is the second company of his creation. Throughout his life and career he has overcome many hardships with tenacity and lots of hard work. He never gave up when a curveball was thrown his way and he is currently content with where he is at 55 years old. Dave agreed to meet with me one evening after a full 12 hours of work and tennis and before he went home for dinner. Despite his fatigue and hunger, he was in an upbeat mood and very willing to share his story between bites of pretzels.
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My name is David Shuttleworth and I am 55 years old. I am an Investment Advisor. I am an entrepreneur in that I own my own firm. Its name is Shuttleworth & Company, and what I do is manage peoples’ investments. And I do it for individuals or companies or retirement accounts, estates, trusts, um and foundations. I started my current company in March of 1999, but before that I was an accountant for 20 years. During that time I was an employee for 10 years and then I had my own firm for 10 years after that. After I trained with my client I always knew that having an Investment Advisory firm or being a partner in his business would be my second business.
A lot of people think that working with clients who are extremely wealthy would be intimidating and nerve racking. The fact is that’s just part of my job. You are hired by a client to manage their money because they’re busy running their businesses, and they don’t have the time or expertise to manage their money. So they’re transferring that responsibility to you, and you have to feel confident in your ability to accept that responsibility. If a person trusts you with $1,000 or $1,000,000 it’s the same responsibility. But, what I find is the importance, the gravity of what I do I take very seriously because people are very, very, concerned about their money. And all clients are important to me whether they have $100,000 or $10,000,000. They all are equal and especially because most of my clients are close friends of mine. Some were with me back in my accounting days and transferred to my Investing Advisory firm when I switched, so it’s based on trust also. This whole business is based on trust and comfort. There’s an old adage in business; “you hire based on people first, the business second, and the product last.” To me, people are the most important. When a client hires me they’re not getting this huge company, they’re getting a very small boutique of a business. So it’s not based on the reputation that they’re hiring. They’re basing it on their trust in me and their comfort with me. It also helps that I do a good service for them and I give them good results.
I went to high school at Firestone High School in Akron, Ohio and I went to a seminar put on by accountants from the large CPA firms that used to be called the Big Eight. [The Big 8 were the eight largest accountancy and professional services firms until 1989.They handled the majority of audits for publicly traded companies, private companies, and creating an oligopoly in auditing large companies. In 1989 the Big Eight changed to the Big Five because of a series of mergers. Today, it has been reduced again to The Big Four.] Now there are only four large firms. Anyway, some accountants out of this one firm from Cleveland came and spoke about career opportunities in accounting. That’s what pushed my buttons back then as far as becoming an accountant. And from that point forward I made a path to become an accountant.
After graduating from Firestone, I went on to University of Akron. Unfortunately I didn’t have any help from my family in paying for school so I was working summer jobs, evening jobs, weekends, and going to school full time for the first two years. Then I ran out of money and had to take a full time job with an accounting firm in Akron before I even graduated and they let me go to school at night. So third year in college I went to school and one of their clients hired me to become their chief accountant! That was very labor intensive so I wasn’t able to finish school. Soon the job moved me to Columbus, Ohio where I worked for another year and then went back to school at The Ohio State University. So I graduated from OSU with an accounting degree. I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. My older brother went to Akron University when I did on the G.I. Bill after he finished his time in the U.S. Coast Guard, but he never graduated. We actually commuted to school together that first year.
I grew up in a working-class family, and so things that were beneficial to me is that my parents were very hard working and didn’t have much money, and what I learned from them is that one had to work for what they got in life. That life was tough and not easy. We didn’t have much growing up. My dad didn’t graduate from High School so that made me learn that education would be the difference between living my parent’s life and my life. They didn’t realize this for me though, it was other people in my life that I learned education was going to make the difference from. So what they gave me was a strong work ethic and being responsible for yourself and in order to make it in this world you need to do it on your own. No one can do it for you. [After this, I asked if it would be okay if we switched gears. He agreed and we spoke about hobbies, eccentricities, and visionaries. I started out asking if there was anyone he considered an important visionary]
There are many famous investment professionals. When you’re in my business you have to identify what methodologies or style of investing you are going to deliver to your clients. So for me, since my firm has been one that has been more growth oriented the visionary I would consider most important is Peter Lynch. [Peter Lynch is a Wall Street stock investor.]
I guess I’m eccentric in a couple ways. I’m very detail oriented and very numbers oriented. I can remember great details when it comes to numbers. It’s meaningless to most individuals, but to me it’s something I can retain. I have a great retention for numbers and that helps me in my job. I guess I relate to numbers [laughs]. The other eccentric quality I have is that I tend to be very neat and organized. That tends to sometimes spill over into personal relations in that I want to organize other people. It goes with my job too I guess. Very much an eye for detail.
Eccentric hobbies [laughs]. I don’t think I have any eccentric hobbies. I have a variety of hobbies though. Golf and tennis are the two sports I play the most. I enjoy hiking with my wife…I hike a lot. I enjoy gardening…I have a vegetable garden. I enjoy the outdoors and nature. I enjoy the environment. So eccentric hobbies…I like learning plants, wildflowers, trees, birds and birdcalls so those are hobbies of mine as well. I guess learning bird calls is sort of eccentric [laughs]. I’m doing yoga now too to loosen myself up and stretch more considering my age. I can’t do a lot of things now that I was able to 10 years ago. Earlier in life I participated in a marathon and a triathlon.
[I then asked him a question about charitable causes and donations]. Hmmmm, that’s an interesting question. I volunteer in a service club called Sertoma which is an abbreviation for a Service to Mankind. The main thing we raise money for is speech and language programs but every week we have meetings and lunches and people from different charities come and speak. Over the past 10 years I’ve been exposed to many different charies and probably the one I’m most fond of right now is the Big Brothers and Sisters program. [Big Brothers and Sisters is a mentoring program for underprivileged kids ages 6-18. It is a national program.] The Big Brothers and Sisters of central Ohio is one of the two largest I believe in the country and they have a camp down in Hocking Hills. It’s close to a place I lease down there. It’s called Camp Oty Okwa, and it’s a summer program for needy children. The “littles” of the program go to the camp for a week. The kid’s families can’t afford to go to camp so they really need people to sponsor them. So the camp ends up giving a lot of services away, so the camp can’t financially support itself. If I had $20,000 I would give it to Camp Oty Okwa for their summer program. I’m not a Big Brother yet, but I have been approved. I just haven’t followed though with getting a “little” yet.
I believe that I’m successful in a few ways. I’m successful in what I do in that I deliver good results for my clients. The second thing is success is measured by your own goals. How large a firm do you wanna have? How many clients do you wanna have? So when I started my business I had the objective of keeping it small and simple and maintaining a personal life. One main reason I stopped my CPA practice is because it consumed me. It took all my energy and I didn’t have a personal life. So when I changed professions, I made it a goal that for me to be successful I would need to have a personal life. So in the 13 years that’s I've been doing this I’ve maintained a personal life, so I’m successful in that regard. That I’m doing what I want, I have financial success in what I do both personally and with clients. And I have personal success in that I am able to maintain a balance between business and personal life. That’s what being successful all is about for me. Having balance.