Forty Under 40: Robby Bader

The summer after Robby Bader graduated high school, he and a few friends hauled 40,000 square bales of hay and more than 500 ricks of wood. In between seasons, he had a fireworks business with 10 employees.

“I think we sold $30,000 in fireworks,” he said. His motivation was to pay for a college education.

But Bader, 31, a Yellville native, didn’t just bank his earnings. He invested in the stock market and other businesses, which is what he’s been doing with his money since he was 12.

“My favorite thing is to be involved in business,” he said. “My brain won’t rest. It’s always crunching numbers.”

His last semester in college, Bader had three jobs and took 25 credit hours, a stunt he doesn’t recommend. He graduated from Ouachita Baptist University with a bachelor’s in finance in 1998 and started soon after with Morgan Stanley in Fayetteville. He became a certified financial planner in 2000.

Morgan Stanley is tight-lipped about assets under management for any one office, but Bader was able to say his team’s total business has grown about 30 percent per year for the last several years.

He only takes on clients with $1 million or more in manageable assets.
His best advice: “If you stay focused on something that you’re passionate about, you will not fail.”