Foster’s Friess
I did one of those ‘born-again’ things and invited Jesus to become Chairman of the Board, of my life.
Foster Friess
Foster Friess passed away in May 2021 at the age of 81. An obituary can be found here.
Foster Friess, ruggedly handsome and as majestic as a giant redwood, stood in the doorway of a Nebraska cabin, his arms raised above his silver-streaked head while holding on to a door frame. A brilliant, charismatic man born to be larger than life, Foster had just stepped out of the shower, a deliverance of refinedness served with a strong dose of cowboy. “You know how I knew I was going to be a rich man?” he said, naked as a Roman sculpture and with what I swear was an honest-to-goodness twinkle in his eye, “because God told me so when I was a child.”
Hold that thought.
My seat at Robertson Stephens was barely warm before I was assigned to cover Friess Associates in the spring of 1994. Located in a leafy suburb of Wilmington, Delaware, and home to the vaunted Brandywine Funds, Friess Associates was a major institutional account, a premier equity manager requiring the full-on kids gloves treatment. The head trader at Friess originally wanted nothing to do with me, for two reasons. One, he believed the account’s backup for the past few years deserved a shot to cover them, not some rookie he had never heard of who needed help finding his way to the men’s room. And two, I had just moved over from Montgomery Securities, which according to him made me something akin to a professional pickpocket. “Give him six months,” said my boss, “and either you’ll love him, or he won’t be working here anymore.” No pressure.
What transpired over the next twenty years was a story only Wall Street could love. I’ve been blessed to become personal friends, many of them close, with a host of former customers. But it’s safe to say that my relationships across the entire spectrum of Friess Associates, from trading to portfolio management to the administrative staff, grew from professional to personal faster and deeper than any other account I covered. They were more than top of the line pros; how could they not be, with yearly performance numbers that were the envy of their peers. And they were more than just fun to cover; my entire account package was filled with folks who enjoyed a rollicking good time. What it really came down was this–Friess Associates was more than a firm; they were a family, and while the daily push and pull with Wall Street was not always rainbows and sunshine, the Friess family was wired to treat those empowered to cover them as family members as well. They were just so real. Damn real, in fact.
That attitude starts at the top, with a man everyone at the firm called Foster. He was a Hall of Fame philanthropist, and his firm led by example. Wall Street is filled with customers who happily come to the opening of a door so long as a broker is footing the bill. But Friess was different. A must-be-there event on my calendar was the annual Friess basketball outing. Organized by the trading desk, sales traders from across the country made the trek to Wilmington in their shorts and skivvies to slay the hardwood and then tell lies and make foggy memories at a local watering hole. The price of admission was a charitable donation, and every broker in attendance, many of whom had Friess to thank for buying their homes, was more than happy to write the check.
I crossed paths with Foster many times over the years, including at Caves Valley Golf Club, where both of us were members. He was friendly, courteous, and polite, and he always managed to remember my name. The passage of time has convinced me that the people he employed shared many of the same values as Foster, namely to have respect for others and to humbly accept the blessings God had granted them. That’s what I pleasantly recall whenever I think about my interactions with Pat, Paul, Susan, Barbara, Emme, Chip, Ryan, Ed, Hank, Andy, Bill, and a few others who I’m sure I’m forgetting, and to whom I apologize for my gaffe. Last, but certainly not least, was Jim, the trader who originally didn’t want me on the account. But he came around.
Foster eased himself from the daily grind at Friess Associates over a decade ago. He became a major player in Republican politics, including making a run for governor of Wyoming. I’m proud of the fact that I was on his annual Thanksgiving card list, imploring causes for the Lynn (his lovely wife of 58 years) and Foster Friess Family Foundation, and reminding all that was great with God. I didn’t always agree with Foster’s politics, but so what. He started a company from scratch, turned it into a wildly successful enterprise, created scores of good, high-paying jobs, and generously gave back to his community. He was a good man.
Let’s return to that moment in Nebraska. Foster LOVED golf, and he was a member of fabled Sand Hills Golf Club, a mythical slice-of-Heaven located near Mullen that catered to a population of 300 hearty souls set amongst a bazillion acres of corn. Foster was a member of fourteen private golf clubs scattered around the country (because, he said, that’s the number of clubs the rules allowed you to carry in your golf bag), and Sand Hills earned a place in his arsenal because it was located halfway across the country and provided a bonified reason to stop and refuel his private jet. Of course, it did.
It was a Friday night, and that morning I had been invited by a portfolio manager to join Foster and his gang of wealthy duffers for a weekend of golf. In Nebraska. On his private jet. I said “count me in” faster than I could clock a buy ticket. We flew to North Platt, got in a pair of waiting vans, and drove north for an hour. Then, at mile post #56, we turned left onto a single-lane paved road. We drove a while longer, and then turned right onto a dirt road. We then drove a while more. At some point we came upon a lonely guard shack. “Welcome to Sand Hills, boys!” said Foster. I looked out the van window and thought at any moment General George Custer and his cavalry would storm over the hills.
For some reason known only to him, Foster decided that I, Lee Geiger, a tick riding the back of a rampaging Wall Street bull, was to spend the next two evenings rooming with him. And that’s how I came face-to-face with a birthday-suited Foster Friess. We were getting ready for dinner, and I had just executed the first lesson taught in Sales School 101, namely get a customer to talk about himself. Only in this case it was like asking the Pope why he chose to become a Catholic. Foster thundered on about the strength and purpose of his faith, how God implored him to work hard, take risks and, most of all, believe in himself and those around him.
“And then He told me to give it all away.”
The following evening, after playing 36 magnificent holes of golf while managing to avoid being ambushed, we shared an after-dinner cocktail on the clubhouse veranda, the tall, lazy grass of the Nebraska prairie waving below us like a gold carpet. Toward the east, a menagerie of lightning bolts danced across a deep-purple sky filled with boiling clouds, while to the west a brilliant Sun set peacefully behind the hills. In that moment, I became aware of an epiphany, a better understanding of what drove Foster to become the man he was.
God was always with him.