Thomas A. James: Chairman Emeritus of Raymond James Financial, Inc.'s Board of Directors and a current member of the Board.Tom James built Raymond James Financial into a regional brokerage and banking powerhouse, now encompassing $1.25 trillion in assets. After sixty years of successfully navigating bull and bear markets, the octogenarian shares his investment wisdom.orn in Sandusky, Ohio but a Floridian from the age of three, Tom James excelled as a student at St.
I was a very unusual major. I switched my majors from physics and math my sophomore year. I said I don't want to teach, and what am I doing spending all this time in organic chemistry labs, and all these courses. I don't want to be a doctor. I don't want to be any of this: I want to be a businessperson, so I switched to economics and philosophy. I stayed the summer and caught up on economics courses, although I'd already taken one in freshman year.
I saw Elvis at a theater in downtown St. Petersburg in the 1950s, and I walked out of there convinced I was going to be a rock and roll singer and I said I’ve got to get a guitar. At Harvard, I went to a mixer when I was a freshman and there was a rockabilly band run by a Canadian named Gordie Main. I went up to him, and he needed a rhythm guitarist, so he invited me to a rehearsal, and I joined the band, appropriately called the Maniacs. I played guitar and was lead singer.
Is there a single investment among the many you've made over the years that you regard as your best ever?