Roy A. Hamrick, CFA

Senior Portfolio Manager and Owner/Manager of Hamrick Investment Counsel, LLC

Charterholder since 1988

Alma Mater University of California at Santa Cruz; Graduated with Honors in 1973

Birthplace San Francisco, CA

Puget Sound neighborhood Capitol Hill in Seattle

Roy Hamrick began his investment career when he worked in the brokerage department of Rainier National Bank and as Investment Specialist on the Securities and Company Information Desk of the Seattle Public Library. He launched Hamrick Investment Counsel in 1988, the same year he earned the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. He is a member of the CFA Institute and past president of the CFA Society of Seattle (2001-2002).

He has served in a number of volunteer positions for nonprofit organizations, including as a member of the investment committee of Temple De Hirsch Sinai, as chair of the investment committee of the Pride Foundation, and as chair of the board of MultiFaith Works. In 2004, he was elected to the board of Executive Alliance, a community based association whose mission is to promote and enhance the nonprofit sector in the Puget Sound region. In 2007, the Greater Seattle Business Association (GSBA) presented Roy with its prestigious “Business Man of the Year” award.

Q & A

You have volunteered for and are on the board of several non-profit organizations. What draws you to be a part of the non-profit sector?

Thanks for asking! I have fascination–since childhood–with investments and the securities markets. I also care deeply about our community. Working, both as a volunteer and in my investment business, with nonprofit organizations enables me to combine my passion for investments with my social values.

You head the Community Outreach Committee at the CFA Society of Seattle and run the homeless dinner each year. What makes you do it year after year?

This is another example of how I seek to combine concern for community with my role as an investment professional. I think our society’s obsession with money and profit has created problems for us–both for the “haves” as well as the “have-nots.” I believe that we all suffer when some people have wealth that exceeds any kind of rationality, while others are starving. With the Community Outreach Committee my intent is to remind people in our professional society about those in our local community who are in need. Preparing and serving food to the homeless gives us the opportunity to try to do a small deed to show that we care. I personally like coming into contact with people who live on the streets. It helps to keep me real and in touch with lives that are vastly different from those of most of the people with whom I work in my business.

You were awarded the “Business Man of the Year” award in 2007 by the Greater Seattle Business Association. What has been the toughest business decision you have had to make?

I find the hardest thing to do in my business is to terminate employees. I don’t think of myself as a ‘natural’ entrepreneur, so I find running a business always has challenges.

Looking back at your tenure as the President of the CFA Society of Seattle (2001-2002), what would you have liked to have done differently?

I am very proud of our local society and how it has grown over the years. I believe we have made excellent strides since I was President. I am delighted with the people who came after me and what they have achieved. I hope that my tenure helped move us towards where we now are.

What was difficult about the time that I was president was that the woman that I followed, Rae Lyn Stannard, was dying of cancer. Rae Lyn was a wonderful woman and only in her mid-40s. She was decidedly a mentor for me, and it was a hard time: hard emotionally to lose a friend, and challenging because she was unable to participate in CFA Society leadership. I didn’t want to put someone else in her place on the board, because I think that would have been an unkind message to her. Thinking back on it now, though, I suppose I could have brought in others to help us out.