Brandon Fair ’13 Reflects on Doing Well – and Doing Good

Brandon Fair, an Edward Jones financial advisor in Winter Springs, originally set out to be an attorney, and majored in political science at UCF. His dream of becoming a lawyer was quickly extinguished when a well-meaning professor told the class there were probably more people studying to become lawyers than there were currently practicing in the United States. Fair pivoted his career ambitions, and has quickly ascended to his current role, where his passions lay in “doing good” for his clients.

In 2004, so entrenched was a young Brandon Fair ’13 in Tennessee collegiate sports that he had never heard of the University of Central Florida.

“I grew up as a UT Vols man,” Fair says, with the barest hint of regret in his voice. “I mean, we were living in East Tennessee, that was the thing to do.”

When his family moved to Winter Springs, however, Fair quickly became acclimated to the ways of the Knights.

“My friend’s father had season tickets to UCF football games,” Fair says. “He would tell us that we could play football here if we wanted, but I think he was mainly talking to my friend, who was 6-foot-2 in middle school.

Fair knew that at 5-foot-10, he was never going to play college football. Still, he very much enjoyed going to the Bounce House and the pre-game tailgates.

Pivoting

He never seriously considered going to UCF, however. He had his sights set on joining the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Florida. He had wanted to join NROTC because some of his family had served in the Navy, but also because he knew that he would essentially graduate from college debt-free.

When he inadvertently missed a cutoff date for the program, he had to do some soul-searching.

 “My parents were very helpful in providing guidance during this time,” Fair says. Still, he says, he kept his expenses low because of he lived so close to home, and because UCF offers one of the best college values in the nation.

“I was disappointed when I learned that I had missed a deadline,” Fair says. “Recruiters had told me that I would make a great candidate, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

No Regrets – Charging On!

 He knew he could take a gap year and reapply to the program, but he wanted to start college right away. After talking with his parents, he decided to enroll at Seminole State College, with a goal of DirectConnect to UCF after earning his associate degree. That decision was the first of many life-changing pivots he would make.

For example, if he had not been passed over for the NROTC program, he would never have been working at Tijuana Flats, where he met his future bride, Sarah Galvin ’13. Brandon and Sarah are also proud parents of future Knight Theodore, who just turned 1 in August.

“It was also just a really good financial decision to go to Seminole State College first,” Fair says. “It didn’t make a ton of difference in my career trajectory, and in 2020 I was named to UCF’s 30 Under 30 list.”

Fair received a Florida’s Bright Futures scholarship, which covered about 75 percent of his tuition and expenses. He still had to work nearly fulltime at Tijuana Flats, starting as a crew member and working his way up to shift manager, to cover his housing and other expenses.

He enjoyed working at the restaurant, where he had an informal agreement with his manager regarding UCF football game days. He promised to work any other shifts whenever requested, but he really, really wanted to be off for UCF home games.

Football games – and what happened after UCF

“The only thing I really, truly made a ton of time for outside of my studies was football,” Fair says. “I was big college football fan, so every home game that we could, I was out there with my girlfriend and her family, and we would tailgate and then go into the game. We never missed a chance to cheer on the Knights.”

Not only is Sarah an alumna, but her father Mark is a two-time Knight, and Sarah’s two sisters are also Knights. [Stephanie Long ’10 and Michelle Galvin ’19].

“Can I say that it feels like I just graduated, but it also feels like it happened a lifetime ago? Fair asks.

As Fair began to develop his personal career plans, he knew that, above anything else, he wanted to do good in a very literal sense.   

“I mean, I’m definitely not Superman, but doing good is my purpose in life. It gets me out of bed each morning,” Fair says. It was one of the main reasons he wanted to become an attorney, and help “put away the bad guys and defend the good guys.”

When Fair’s professor gave him a reality check about his career prospects, he realized he needed to pivot again, so he went to his mom, Maria, for advice. She was a financial advisor, and Fair had always looked up to her. He wanted to ask her something that was on his mind.

Advice from his mother

“Do you do good? Do you feel like what you do each day is actually doing good for people?”

His mother told him that, in her experience, many people did not have a good grasp of even basic budgeting, and more complicated topics like building investment portfolios and managing risks are often not covered in even college-level courses. She also told her son that she felt she did good by helping individuals and families get on track to buy a house, or to retire, or to help them do the things in their lives that were the most important to them.

His mother gave him another important piece of advice: as a new college graduate, her son was too young and inexperienced to consider becoming a financial advisor. No one, his mother said, is going to trust a 21-year-old about retirement matters. Better he should start off learning about the world. In the political science program in the College of Sciences, there was an international relations track. He leaned into that and added a minor in business.

Hot prospects after graduation

“As I neared graduation, I began applying at different asset managers – basically, mutual fund companies who were running multi-billion-dollar portfolios.”

Fair realized that his knowledge of international relations and global economies set him apart from other job-seeking graduates, and in short order, he’d had three offers, the most compelling of which was from JPMorgan Asset Management.  

There was a small catch, Fair says. The job was in Columbus, Ohio. When he and his fiancée told her parents they would be moving to the Buckeye State, her mother laughed. She told them she had spent most of her life trying to get out of Ohio, and then this happens.

Brandon and Sarah ended up getting married in Ohio, and then, as Brandon sought out new opportunities in finance, he landed a job in Chicago.

By now, Fair was working in the retirement division at JPMorgan, covering the southwest part of the country, including half of California, and Nevada and Arizona.

“I helped companies who needed investment managers to find those opportunities to present to their customers,” Fair says. “It was a lot of fun for me, but also, of course, a lot of high pressure because there were multibillion dollar strategies involved where each decision could mean there were tens of millions of dollars at stake.”

Fair and his wife also became more involved with the vibrant AlumKnight community in the Windy City.

At first, they were watching games in their apartment, but they soon ventured out to a UCF watch party.

“We absolutely fell in love with the group,” Fair says. “We made a lot of really good friends that we still travel with and keep in contact today, even though we haven’t lived in Chicago for four years now.”

Fair became the chair of the Chicago UCF Alumni Community for a few years, and he and Sarah pivoted again.

Moving back to Orlando

Although the couple loved Chicago, they wanted to start their family, and realized they wanted their child to know their grandparents, aunts and uncles, and the rest of their family – and many of those folks were down in Orlando.

Throughout his time at JPMorgan, Fair had enjoyed very much the high stakes – and high pressure – that is involved with many institutional finance organizations. What was missing, he felt, was his raison d’etre – or the most important purpose for his existence. His need for “doing good.”

Although Fair knew that he was providing the best possible guidance for his corporate clients, he was missing the one-to-one interaction that only financial advisors can provide.

Fair once again sought out advice from his mother – who was planning her own retirement – she gave him some surprising advice.

“My mom told me that she was really proud of the work I’ve done,” Fair says. “She told me that if I was still considering a career as an advisor, that we could work together if I wanted, but she thought I would do really well.”

That was the sign that Fair needed, he says.

“My mother was well aware of the work I was doing, and the growth I’d had both personally and professionally. To have her ringing endorsement meant the world to me.”

So in the height of the global pandemic in 2020, Brandon and Sarah rented a moving truck in Chicago, had a few friends from their “bubble” help them pack everything up, and in the course of a week, moved back down to Florida.

That same year, Fair was named to UCF Alumni’s 30 Under 30.

A whirlwind and coming full circle

As Fair reflects on his life and career since graduating from UCF, he credits his background in political science as honing his critical thinking skills that allowed him to consider a deeper dive when it came to his understanding of the world of finance.

“In my case, I think there is no single way when it relates to how an individual structures oneself economically or politically,” Fair says. “There is a lot of nuance and subtlety that goes into each of these thought processes, right? For example, there is no singularly perfect way to structure a retirement account. If there were, then we would all just do it that way.”

It’s clear that Fair has been developing his advising strategy almost as long as his personal credo of doing good.

Fair has a long history of doing good at UCF. Even when he was a line cook at Tijuana Flats, he regularly made philanthropic gifts to UCF Foundation.

“I think everyone has the capacity to do good,” Fair says. “But does it also make sense to look at an organization that I believe is doing good? Absolutely! That is why I supported UCF back when I was a student, and continue to support them now. I agree with what they’re doing in the world, and I know they especially help lift up our students.”

One of Fair’s favorite essays is a discourse on heaven and hell by motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. Fair’s mother took him to one of his events when he was in high school.

In heaven and hell, groups of people were seated at a table with the finest food and drink. A four-foot knife and fork was strapped to each person’s arm. One group was starving and miserable, and one group was healthy and laughing. The only difference? The healthy group was feeding each other.

Fair’s takeaway of the event was that “if you help other people get what they need and want, you will get everything you need and want.” The powerful message has stayed with him for years.

Fair has continued supporting UCF since graduation, and he is also the chair of the Greater Orlando Knights Community.

 [Find your UCF home away from home!]

Becoming involved with UCF Greater Orlando Alumni

When Fair and his wife moved to Orlando in 2020, they wanted to continue their involvement with UCF, and joined the Knights Community in Seminole County. At the time, there wasn’t a dedicated Orlando group, Fair says, but there were enough Knights living in the Orlando area that his just made sense to change the name.

Fair is also a board member at HOPE Helps, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to prevent and reduce hunger and homelessness in Central Florida by equipping individuals and families to become self-sufficient.

A little closer to home, Fair and his wife are hoping that they are leading Teddy Fair down a “good” path.

“We try to model the right behaviors,” Fair says. “Teddy already participated in his first 5K; obviously, he was in a stroller, but he was there supporting the event all the way. We know he’s still a baby, but we want to show him as much of that community spirit as we can, and hopefully some of the things we’re showing him will have an impact.”  

Obviously, Brandon and Sarah hope that their enthusiasm about their involvement with UCF will play a big role in little Teddy’s life.

“Becoming a member of your local UCF alumni community is more than a networking opportunity, although it is extremely beneficial if that’s what you want to do,” Fair says. “The watch parties are a lot of fun, and we are also involved in important community outreach projects all the time.”

When the Fairs moved to Orlando, one of their first projects happened during COVID. A local foster care organization had sent out an urgent need for canned food, school supplies, clothing donations and other items the children needed.

Using safe distancing, Fair and the other community members unloaded donations from cars as they pulled in front of Fairwinds Alumni Center. They filled four truckloads and delivered the much-needed supplies to the foster home.”

What Fair has found, he says, is that there are so many passionate UCF alumni who thrive on getting involved – not just with the university, but with each other.

What’s so special about UCF?

“When you meet someone from UCF,” Fair says, “Not only do we have that immediate connection from our shared experiences, but there is an almost inherent trust, and that our intentions are genuine.”

Those feelings transcend geographical boundaries, Fair says. He has spotted many UCF-gear wearing alumni from Ohio to Europe, even at random places like Neuschwanstein Castle in Schwangau, Germany.

And, he’s always pleased when he learns that his clients are Knights or Knight fans, but his credo of doing good extends to everyone.

“As a financial advisor, people often assume that I’m obsessed with money,” Fair says. “Financial advisors are obsessed with purpose; money is that the tool that we use in our system to achieve that purpose. And as an advisor, it helps my purpose of doing good – I get to help people do the things they want to do. And that is a good thing.”