The son and
grandson of doctors, James Evans Stowers Jr. was born on Jan.
10, 1924 in Kansas City, Mo. A life-long Missouri
resident, Stowers spent his formative years immersed in the
Midwestern values and culture that would later serve him well
in his various professional and philanthropic pursuits. It
was at the historic Kemper Military School in Boonville, Mo.
that Stowers learned about discipline, organization and
leadership. After graduating from the University of Missouri,
he joined the Army Air Corps where he became a fighter pilot
and gunnery instructor. Upon his return to civilian life in
1945, he enlisted in the Air Force Reserves and served as a
captain until resigning his commission in 1957.
Given his
family’s background in medicine, Stowers initially considered
a career as a doctor. But frustrated by what he referred to
as the “hassle” of becoming a physician, Stowers set his
sights on the business world. After a stint selling mutual
funds for Kansas-based Waddell & Reed, he founded a term life
insurance firm – J.E. Stowers and Company – and in 1958, the
money management firm Twentieth Century (later to become
American Century Investments).
Relying on
$100,000 in seed money from 24 investors and initially
offering only two mutual funds, Stowers’ company has become
one of the country’s top money managers serving individual and
institutional investors. Current assets under management now
top $100 billion.
In
reflecting on the origins and success of his company, Stowers
once wrote, “From the start of our company, we had a dream.
That dream was to try to offer people only the best products
and services – second to none.” In addition, Stowers wrote,
“It was my belief that if we helped make people successful
that they would in turn make us successful.”
Early in
Stowers’ investment management career, he embraced a concept
that would serve as the basic investment philosophy behind
many of the portfolios offered by his money management firm.
Stowers believed “money follows earnings,” meaning over time
investors in the equity markets would gravitate to the best
companies, primarily those experiencing earnings growth. He
further refined this approach by only focusing on companies
whose earnings and revenues were growing at an accelerating
pace.
In the early
1970s, recognizing that computers could help streamline his
stock analysis process, Stowers wrote his own proprietary
computer program to help identify companies with the most
desirable growth characteristics. Today, the “Stowers System”
– as it was referred to by the Securities and Exchange
Commission – is an integral part of the investment process
guiding more than a dozen growth funds at American Century,
including flagship fund Ultra.
Throughout
the 1970s and 1980s, this computer-assisted stock selection
process helped Stowers generate strong performance for
investors and brought newfound celebrity to this folksy
Midwestern entrepreneur and innovator. In early 1981,
Stowers’ photo appeared on the cover of MONEY magazine,
accompanied by a feature story about the success of his funds
over the previous five-year period.
By the early
1990s, Stowers and his company were becoming household names
in investing circles. With the Ultra fund racking up an
amazing 86 percent return in 1991, a second wave of national
attention helped the company double its assets under
management in a single year. In recalling that period,
Stowers said, “The fund was going way up and people were
calling. Every time you’d hang up the telephone, it would
ring again and we were just being drowned in calls.”
In addition,
the 1990s marked the beginning of the company’s move beyond
its successful domestic growth investment process into other
investment disciplines including fixed income, international,
value, asset allocation and quantitative equity. Also, the
firm began to look beyond the retail marketplace to
intermediaries and institutional asset management.
Just as
Stowers was beginning to enjoy the fruits of his many years of
hard work, his family was confronted with the first in a
series of battles with cancer. Jim was diagnosed and treated
for prostate cancer in 1986 and his wife Virginia had surgery
for breast cancer in 1993. Their middle daughter, Kathleen,
struggles with cancer today.
Motivated by
their own experience with the disease and a desire to give
something back to the community that nurtured American Century
into a successful enterprise, Jim and Virginia Stowers founded
the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in 1994. Located
on a 10-acre facility within view of American Century’s Kansas
City headquarters, the Institute is now home to dozens of top
scientists studying the way genes can be altered to prevent or
slow disease.
In
describing his reason for starting the Institute, Stowers
said, “My wife and I wanted to give back something more
valuable than money to the millions of people who made our
success possible and we think that science is the best way we
can do it.” The Institute is supported by a $2 billion
endowment, primarily made up of securities and cash gifts from
the Stowers family.
As Stowers
became a septuagenarian, a point when many dream of
retirement, he continued his crusade to help others improve
their financial positions. He shared his investing insights
and tips for financial self-sufficiency in the well-received
book: “Yes, You Can…Achieve Financial Independence.” The book
– one in a series of periodicals based on Stowers’ investment
philosophies – is published through Stowers Innovations, a
company he founded to help individuals improve their lives
through financial, inspirational and motivational concepts.
Early in the
new millennium, Stowers was chosen to be a torch-bearer for
the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City,
another achievement in the extraordinary life of an ordinary
man. Broadcast on NBC Nightly News, Stowers’ torch run once
again propelled the humble philanthropist and businessman onto
the national stage. Perhaps the NBC reporter captured the
essence of Stowers best when he described him as a man who’s
given a “gold-medal performance in the generosity
competition.”
The honor of
carrying the touch was followed by Stowers being named Ernst &
Young’s 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year in the Financial
Services Category. In his acceptance speech for the
prestigious award, Stowers said, “With both American Century
and the Institute, the goal was never about self enrichment.
Rather, the larger goal has been to improve the lives of
others, either by helping them achieve financial independence
or by conducting medical research into the causes and
potential cures for devastating gene-based diseases.”
Reflecting
on his long, full life and the traits necessary for prosperity
in the business world, Stowers said, “I’m absolutely convinced
that the only way we can earn the trust of our investors is to
prove to them every day that we’re sincere about wanting to
make them successful,” said Stowers. “To me, if you’ve got
something to say, it should come from the heart. That’s why
sincerity is one of the traits I admire most in someone.”
