Bob joined Ashton Thomas Private Wealth in 2022 as Trade Support and Operations Specialist. He assists the trade desk with daily workflow and special projects and is a member of the Asset Allocation Team, which supports the firm’s advisors in portfolio construction, investment research, and related matters.
Bob was previously Trade Manager at Voya Financial, where he helped the firm migrate trading functions from an outsourced provider to an internal overlay trade team, which he supervised. Following the majority acquisition of Voya by Cetera Financial, Bob became Advisory Operations Supervisor with responsibility for a team of 20 trading and trade support professionals. Before Voya/Cetera, Bob was briefly with Merrill Edge where he focused on the account margin and options functions. He started his professional financial services career after college with Vanguard, where he worked for about a decade in various roles, including the margin and restricted stock trade desks.
Bob is a native New Englander who hails from Bethany, Connecticut. He attended Bryant College (now Bryant University) in Rhode Island and graduated in 1999 with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration concentrating in Finance. Bob came to Arizona in 2000 at his uncle’s invitation. With the exception of a brief stint back east a number of years ago, he has been a resident of the desert southwest ever since. He currently resides in Tempe.
Outside of market hours, Bob is an accomplished powerlifting coach and former competitive powerlifter. He trains powerlifting athletes nationally and currently coaches one of the top-five female powerlifters in the United States. Bob’s passion for the sport was born in 2002—the same year he started working for Vanguard—when he began competing as a weightlifter. “I started a powerlifting gym in my garage because we couldn’t train at the local gym,” he says. “Today the sport has evolved to where gyms catering specifically to powerlifters are located all over the country. It’s been great to be a part of the growth of this sport and to work with so many talented, committed athletes over the years.”
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