Most people are retired by their 70th birthday, but Gerald Strid instead saw an opportunity to co-found, with his sons in 2014, King of Prussia’s Concentus Wealth Advisors, writes Norb Vonnegut for The Wall Street Journal.

A relatively small fish in the world of wealth management, controlling assets of around $420 million, Concentus is part of the growing number of smaller breakaway firms that are providing investors with an alternative to the behemoths.

Strid discussed with the Journal the ups and downs of his 48-year career in the wealth-management industry.

Strid, who has gone by “Zeke” since playing football for Villanova, began his financial-services career in 1968 with an insurance company, before moving to a small Philadelphia-based broker-dealer. Even at that time, he already knew he wanted to be “the director of my own life.”

He also talked about the extended bear market in the early 1970s, when he had to work as a painter in his spare time to make ends meet for his family, before the market turned around. After that, he never looked back.

Strid noted that one of the biggest lessons he has learned during his career is that there is no better catalyst for problem solving than looking a client in the eye and feeling the weight of getting the job right.

Now running Convectus, which means harmony and agreement in Latin, Strid feels that his two-year-old firm of eight advisors is already helping investors with its personal approach.

Read more about Gerald Strid in The Wall Street Journal by clicking here.