By Logan Gilland, CFP®
The frustration of being assigned a freshman roommate during my senior year — while serving as a third-year resident advisor, no less, was no laughing matter. Move-in day arrived and I was less than thrilled.
Then I walked into that dorm room and standing there was Quint Tatro.
I recognized him immediately, everyone at Gatton Business School did. He was the professor whose class students fought to get into, and as it turned out, I was already enrolled in his course that fall. His nephew had come down from New York, and by some combination of fate and divine intervention, ended up as my roommate.
That semester in Quint’s class, I was the only student whose name he knew for the first month, which meant I got called on constantly. The problem? I knew next to nothing about the market. My answers ranged from “I have no clue” to the slightly less inspiring “huh.”
By the end of that same semester, though, my team of three won the class stock pitch competition. We’d pitched Deckers Outdoor Corporation on the strength of their then-unknown acquisition of a small running shoe company called Hoka (note to self if you ever pitch a stock you believe in, BUY IT). That win sent us to a national competition at the University of Georgia alongside Quint. We didn’t take home the trophy, but the experience was invaluable and Quint had already cemented himself as a true mentor. He was one of the only professors I ever had who made a point to talk about life well beyond the classroom walls.
Post-graduation, I found myself working at GE Aviation in Cincinnati under their Financial Management Program. Good job, good resume line, and I was going quietly crazy sitting in a cubicle all day.
So I called Quint.
He invited me to come shadow him for a day. In the very first client meeting we sat in together, Quint looked across the table and told a man he could finally retire, and that his dream of selling cucumbers and tomatoes at the farmers market was now within reach.
I was hooked.
Two weeks later, I was hitting the ground running in our American Avenue office, sitting about four feet from Quint (a foot and a half from the leg lamp). For five years, we were shoulder to shoulder listening to calls together, analyzing stock picks, going on air with Jack Pattie together, and walking alongside clients through every phase of their financial lives. And sometimes well beyond just the financial.
Slowly, almost without noticing it, my answers started to change. The “I have no clues” became “I’ll take that one, Quint.”
I could fill pages with the stories from those years. The high fives and the “sheesh, this is an ugly day” moments. The market slides and the wins. The five-meeting days where we’d make our way to KSBar to break it all down. The 5am texts to talk through what we were seeing before the opening bell.
Quint’s mentorship, guidance, and friendship has been one of the most formative relationships of my life. As he steps away after today, he will be genuinely missed. But I also know this isn’t really goodbye. The DIY Money podcast rolls on, weekly lunches aren’t going anywhere, and there’s always the occasional detailed review at Keeneland. More importantly, Quint will keep doing what he does best investing in the next generation through his work at the University of Kentucky and in local high schools. As well as investing more time and energy into Southland Christian Church.
His next chapter is well-earned, and I couldn’t be more excited for him.
This transition is bittersweet, no question. But the lessons from American Avenue: the way we think about helping people, planning for their futures, and how we invest, don’t walk out the door with him. They’re woven into everything we do going forward. Still the biggest compliment I receive is when folks tell me they hear me on the radio and cannot tell a difference between my voice or Quint’s.
It’s been a remarkable journey. The Lord does work in mysterious ways.
I’m awfully glad I got that freshman roommate after all.
Talk again soon.