The Team

Bob’s passion in financial planning ignited at an early age when he became curious about his parents many unopened bank statements. Though absorbed with baseball, he found his thoughts often went to financial matters at home.

During his college years, he pursued his love of baseball while also studying business and earning a degree in Sports Administration. At age 21, he went to work in the Majors, where he served as Assistant Director of Public Relations for the California Angels. A year later, he became as engrossed with stock market data as he was with baseball statistics, and was fascinated when a lucky stock investment doubled in two months, earning the equivalent of a month’s salary.

With this experience, a light went on for Bob, who realized that with the proper application of mathematical analysis and stock market data, success in the financial markets could be his. At age 24, he made a decision to leave baseball, joining E.F. Hutton & Company as a trainee, and subsequently spent 19 years with Prudential Securities as a financial advisor.

As Bob’s expertise deepened, so did his personal relationships with his clients. He was invited to their weddings, learned about their children and understood the hard choices they had to make about their aging parents.

Eventually, he decided he needed to align his research findings and his clients’ best interests by establishing an independent, fee-only financial planning and investment advisory firm. When the opportunity came to form TABR with Steve Medland in 2004, his vision was fulfilled.

And, while finance is now his “first love”, baseball has never disappeared completely from his life. Today, Bob combines both baseball and finance through his involvement in Cal State Fullerton’s baseball team and Cal State Fullerton’s finance department. Furthermore, Bob is a board member of the Cal State Fullerton Applied Security Analysis Program. In this program, students run a small portfolio management business, and the board consists of “a collection of the University’s faculty along with portfolio managers who manage millions, and in some cases billions, of other peoples’ money.”

Over the years, his keen mathematical analysis and stock market research has caught the financial media’s attention and Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Investment News began seeking his opinion.

Bob has been a Chartered Market Technician and Professional Member of the Market Technicians Association since 1989 and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Fullerton. His work has appeared in Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities as well as in Advisor Perspectives, the leading interactive publisher for Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs). He is a contributing author to Financial Savvy for the Small Business Owner (Financial Forum Publishing, 2009).

Bob and his wife, Michelle, live in Yorba Linda, California. They have a son and a daughter.

While most high school students were dreaming about the day they get their driver’s license, Steve was already investing in the stock market with his father’s guidance. Growing up in Orange County, his parents stressed the importance of savings; however, money was tight when it came time to apply for college. Undaunted, he applied for and received a congressional nomination and full scholarship to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. Equipped with his engineering degree after four years at the academy, he set his course for a new destination: Navy submarine officer.

Though Steve was only earning about $24,000 per year initially after graduation, he immediately started saving $150 per month and investing it in the stock market. Applying the discipline he developed in the Navy, Steve took at least half of the monthly increase from each raise and promotion and added it to his investments. This eventually allowed him to leave the Navy to fund and pursue his interest in finance by earning an MBA from the Wharton School.

While Steve was earning his MBA, the internet-bubble collapse created market havoc. He contacted his financial advisor, Bob Kargenian, at Prudential and asked to spend the summer of 2001 analyzing Bob’s approach to business with the tools he had developed in business school. That summer, Steve experienced the difference between generic financial advice and how well-researched financial planning could lead to a more secure and rewarding life. It was then that he realized financial planning was no longer just a personal interest but his calling.

The two had a productive summer together, and after Steve graduated, Bob brought him on board. After a year of working together, the pair co-founded TABR in 2004.

Steve’s strategic and tactical approach to financial planning has made him a reliable source for insight into market trends; he has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, BusinessWeek, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, and Kiplinger’s Retirement Report, among others. He is also a regular guest financial planning expert on the Your Money radio program on SiriusXM. Read more TABR in the News.

Steve is the author of Spiraling Up: Discover Financial Serenity, Make Work Optional, and Live Happily in Retirement.

He is a member of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) and the Financial Planning Association^® (FPA^®).

Like Bob, giving back is an essential part of Steve’s life. He has helped build seven homes with Habitat for Humanity and currently volunteers with Homes for Our Troops, an organization that builds specially adapted homes for severely injured veterans.

Steve is also a volunteer interviewer for the University of Pennsylvania/Wharton School Alumni Interview Program, which is dedicated to offering an interview to every undergraduate applicant to the University of Pennsylvania.

Steve lives with his family in Irvine, California.