Randy Garcia
Randy Garcia is hardly unique in having met and known the late Fred C. Albrecht. After all, the affable Albrecht was omnipresent on campus during his 37 years as a teacher, tennis coach, administrator, and champion of alumni relations.
“I never could go far,” Garcia says today, “without bumping into Fred.”
Garcia also isn’t unique in having tremendous admiration for Albrecht, who upon his passing in 2016 was referred to by a former Rebels athletics director as a “campus icon” and by a former Nevada governor as “Mr. UNLV”.
Garcia’s admiration for Albrecht began to develop during his time as a student in the mid-1970s, when he “took every available tennis class I could from Fred.”
And it only grew from there. “Fred was such a wonderful person,” Garcia says. “After I graduated, we became good friends and shared a lot of fun times that we laughed about for many years.”
Now Garcia has another connection with Albrecht — a connection that will live in perpetuity: He’s the 2024 Fred C. Albrecht Outstanding Alumnus of the Year.
“Having known Fred personally like I did, and known about his immeasurable contributions to and love for UNLV, I am deeply moved,” Garcia says. “UNLV benefited enormously from Fred’s campus and community involvement. To this day, I can’t imagine another person on campus who was loved as much as him.
“So it’s truly special to receive an award named in his honor — and also to be included in the company of past recipients, all of whom I respect immensely.”
Garcia indeed was touched to learn he’d been chosen for the prestigious honor. However, in the split-second moment after he got the news, a much different reaction was triggered: legitimate shock.
“Although I heard what was said, I couldn’t process it clearly,” he says. “Because I didn’t believe it.”
Of course, those familiar with Garcia’s decades-long passion and support for UNLV probably can’t believe the call didn’t come sooner.
The son of a hard-working former World War II Army paratrooper, Garcia moved to Las Vegas with his family in 1957. It was the very same year that a university then known as Nevada Southern first opened its doors.
While spending his formative years in the desert, Garcia had a front-row seat to Nevada Southern’s growth. Eventually, he developed an affinity for the Rebels’ football, basketball, and baseball teams, thrilled to know he would someday be part of the student body.
How did Garcia know this? Because his father worked not one but two full-time jobs (and sometimes more) to ensure that his children had what he didn’t: a better, easier life.
“That meant I was going to college,” Gacia says. “And UNLV was the only university we knew. So when it came time to attend college, I was excited about being a Rebel.”
Not so exciting were the multiple jobs that Garcia worked while taking a full load of classes in pursuit of his accounting degree — grocery clerk, construction worker, and warehouse stockman.
“But the best job,” he says, “was as an accounting, finance, management, and math tutor for UNLV football and basketball players (as well as other students). I got that job thanks to assistant football coach Clayton Bywaters.
“All totaled, I usually worked about 40 hours a week during the school year, and that jumped to 80-plus hours during summers.”
That workload, combined with his academic responsibilities, left Garcia little time for social activities, such as joining a fraternity or even attending the games those he tutored would plain in.
The hard work and sacrifice paid off, though, when Garcia parlayed his accounting degree into a job in the financial world, where he spent the first decade of his career as an investment advisor for one of the nation’s top financial firms.
Suffice to say, early business was good.
“Without any help from family or friends,” he says, “I developed the largest clientele in Nevada, according to one of the largest wealth management firms.”
Unfortunately, Garcia’s professional satisfaction was not in sync with his personal success. In a nutshell, he was no longer willing to tolerate or work around industry practices compromising the best interests of clients.
So failing to effect change from the inside, Garcia in 1987 chose to open his own business and chart a new course, guided by his own set of ethically sound principles. One of those principles: The client’s best interests come first.
Nearly four decades later, Garcia remains the CEO and chief investment officer for The Investment Counsel Company, a Las Vegas-based financial advisory firm managing more than $2 billion in assets under management. Since the firm’s doors first opened, he has put integrity and trust above all other tenets.
The end result? A sterling, nationally recognized reputation, which led to immense success — the kind that has given The Investment Counsel Company’s founder the opportunity to support one of his greatest passions: his alma mater.
Exactly how many UNLV entities have benefited from Garcia’s generous spirit over the years? Put it this way: Reciting even a condensed list requires one to take a deep breath.
The Lee Business School’s departments of finance and marketing, the UNLV Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine, the Honors College, the College of Fine Arts, the UNLV Jazz Ensemble — Garcia has lent a helping hand to them all.
One specific example: Garcia is sponsoring a trip for Honors College students to the Nevada State Legislature next spring so they can observe how a bill becomes law. Students will meet with Gov. Joe Lombardo, former U.S. Senator Richard Bryan, and members of the Nevada Legislature to further enhance their experience.
Additionally, Garcia is working with the Financial Management Student Association to take students to New York to meet with leading Wall Street companies. The goal is to help students better understand the broader range of career options available in the financial industry.
Beyond his financial contributions, Garcia has served UNLV as a member of the UNLV Foundation’s board of trustees since 2011. He also serves as chairman of that board’s Investment Committee.
Simply put, when it comes to his alma mater, the 2024 Fred C. Albrecht Outstanding Alumnus of the Year is a giver. And that’s not about to change.
“Two experiences shared by my mentors became my guiding principles in the area of philanthropy: Giving is a privilege, and helping others — especially through education — provides benefits that last a lifetime and inspire others to follow suit.
“After all, I certainly benefited from plenty of help along the way. And I know others did, too.”
When you got to UNLV, you decided to study accounting. Did you ever consider going into a different field?
My parents wanted me to be a doctor, and if not that, a lawyer. So I tried biology and political science classes, but didn’t feel a strong connection to either.
Then I took my first two accounting classes from Dr. Richard Strahlem. The concepts connected effortlessly. What really sealed the deal was Dr. [Marshall] Hamilton, my intermediate accounting professor. He took a sincere personal interest in mentoring me to ensure I excelled in his classes. No other teacher I had — from the first grade onward — ever did that.
Thanks to Professor Hamilton, I learned for the first time how to consistently earn high A’s in my classes. That hadn’t happened before, either. So at that point, I was a fully committed accounting major — and happily so.
Your time as a UNLV student was extraordinarily busy because you were consistently working . Did you struggle to make meaningful connections on and around campus?
Not at all. Making friends with fellow students actually came easy. We studied at the library, ate together, and exercised together. Many of us remain friends to this day, and we still reminisce about the difficult classes we had — and the fun classes, too, such as tennis, camping, skiing, and weightlifting.
All in all, I had a wonderful time at UNLV both in and out of the classroom — a time filled with so many great memories. I will always be grateful to my alma mater.
A decade after you graduated, you founded your own business, The Investment Counsel Company. What went into the decision to not only go out on your own but establish the business in your hometown?
Since entering the financial industry, I’ve been guided by three key principles: Every client is entitled to a positive experience; every client is entitled to an advisor who will continually challenge the financial industry’s current standards to gain every possible advantage for the client; and every advisor should have a proactive rather than reactive approach — because that ultimately is what determines a client’s success.
Unfortunately, I found the industry training practices insufficient when first entering the business. This included not caring about client conflicts of interest when it came to advice and investment products, as well as advisor compensation not aligned with client interests.
Additionally, because in-house advisors competed more against each other than against rival firms, offices did not function collaboratively.
I knew there was a three-part formula that would create an unbeatable competitive force: have access to investment research and investment products that were free from conflicts of interest; train far above the industry minimum standards; and ensure everyone in the office supported and cared about each other’s success.
So I traveled to Wall Street in search of a company that also believed in putting their clients’ interests above their own and that was willing to open a Las Vegas office. One globally respected company agreed to do so, but under one condition: I had to recruit 10 other advisors who would agree to no upfront incentive compensation to change companies.
We both knew that was unlikely to happen given industry practices at the time. At this point, I knew if I was going to truly espouse my own beliefs, my only alternative was to build such a business model and become one of the industry’s pioneer independent fiduciary wealth managers.
That prospect was frightening. Especially after the president of the industry’s largest wealth management firm flatly said that without sales commissions and other revenue from cross-selling multiple services, companies like mine would fail.
Undeterred, I pressed forward, and after five years of planning, I launched my company in 1987. Thankfully, one of the large local hotel-casino owners provided financial assistance, and my other clients followed me, too.
Today, I’m flattered to say that many national financial services firms brand themselves as providing fiduciary wealth management services. Essentially, they’ve copied the vision I had in the early 1980s — the one I was told was destined to fail.
How has your firm grown in the past four decades, and what has been the secret to its success?
At launch, The Investment Counsel Company office consisted of four UNLV undergraduates, along with my former roommate from Santa Clara School of Law, a newly trained advisor, my assistant, and me.
Today, we have 26 employees, many from UNLV.
Together, we’ve achieved success far beyond my expectations — and it’s because of the three guiding principles previously mentioned. Simply put, I always believed placing our clients’ interests first to achieve what is important to them would lead to far greater mutual benefits. And it has.
Every career is filled with challenges and rewards. What is one of the greatest challenges you have encountered, and what has been your most meaningful professional reward?
For me, they’re both intertwined because one needs to look no further than the daily news to see clear evidence of the greatest challenge: success without compromising ethics. However, knowing it is indeed possible to be successful in a highly competitive industry without compromising one’s ethics and integrity — that is the greatest reward.
What is your message to the recent UNLV alum about the importance of supporting their alma mater post-graduation?
I heard a song performed earlier this year while at the U.S. cemetery in Normandy, France, during the commemorative ceremonies for the 75th anniversary of D-Day. There was a lyric that referred to a mother asking her son why he felt compelled to enlist. It went, “If not me, then who? If not now, then when?”
The point is a UNLV education is a timeless and boundless gift. If you’re one of the fortunate ones who have benefited from this education, it’s important to give back so others can do the same.
You’ve given UNLV a lot over the years. What’s the biggest “gift” your alma mater gave you?
It goes back to the class I had with Professor Hamilton.
Through him, I learned to excel academically. That lesson would come in handy throughout my career, during which I eventually became one of the nation’s top 100 independent wealth managers as well as the No. 1-rated financial advisor in Nevada for more than a decade as ranked by The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s.
A recent UNLV graduate who is about to embark on their career asks you for one piece of professional advice. What’s your reply?
Embrace the harder and longer road less traveled in all aspects of life. Because the rewards are often far better and you will find greater satisfaction. And never hesitate to do what is in the best interest of everyone concerned — not just yourself.
