2008 Circle of Champions

I just got back from Tucson where I attended Waddell and Reed's Circle of Champions meeting. This is a meeting where top advisors in the firm are recognized and we get a chance to meet with home office personal and top management from the company. This was the 25th year that I have attended this function. The first one was in Scottsdale Arizona. There are only three or four people in the advisor division of the company that have been to as many as I have. We've been to Arizona a number of times, Quebec, Florida, Chicago, San Antonio, Seattle, Salt Lake, Kansas City, San Diego, Los Angeles, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco, Albuquerque and probably a few places I can'nt remember. In fact it was in route to the Circle Trip to Lake Tahoe that we discovered the Carson Valley where we now live.

Of the 2400 advisors and managers that work for the company about 600 qualify by their production to attend the meeting. In the early days of my career I would just barely qualify to go. Now I am one of the company leaders. For the last 6-7 years I have been one of the top ten advisors in the company. I get a lot of recognition. Last night I had a lady come up to me and say she just wanted to meet me. I thought she might ask for an autograph or something. I used to hold the top advisors in awe. Now most of them are my friends.

At the meetings we have business meetings in the morning and then free time in the afternoon, then some kind of dinner activity at night. One night on this trip we went to the Pima Air mueseum. It is basically a graveyard for old airplanes. But I love airplanes so I thouht it was great. They had a big dinner. We got to see JFKs presidential plane. Johnson used it as well. At the end of the evening they had a skyjumping team parachute into the field.

I'm fortunate to work with a company that has a mission to serve the public, to recognize and treat it's people well and pays me pretty well. I have many friends in the company and am on a first name basis with the senior management of the company.