Profile: Dale E. Yahnke

Financial adviser/philanthropist credits his success to transparency and giving back to the community

By Arthur Lightbourn

Dale E. Yahnke Photo/Jon Clark

Dale Yahnke is great believer in transparency.
It’s a word often used but seldom adhered to in the Wall Street scheme of things.
But, when Yahnke and his partner, Mark Dowling, went into business 19 years ago as independent investment advisers, transparency, they decided, would be the cornerstone of their relationship with clients coupled with a policy of “giving back” to the community.
It’s an approach to business that has proven solidly successful.
Today, as fee-only investment advisers, Dowling & Yahnke, with its staff of 21, has more than $1.4 billion in assets under management providing portfolio management and retirement planning for 700 individuals and families.
Yahnke was listed as one of Barron’s Top 100 Independent Financial Advisers for two years in a row, the only adviser in San Diego to be so recognized.
We interviewed the 53-year-old CEO recently in his offices on El Camino Real in Carmel Valley.
Yahnke is 5-foot-10, 200 pounds, with short-cut hair, a dry wit and the solid stance of a short but determined life-long basketball player and twice-a-week squash player.
Prominently displayed on one wall of his office are two framed and signed jerseys of baseball great Sandy Koufax and basketball icon Michael Jordan.
“I love sports,” Yahnke confessed. “I’m a basketball junkie. I go to the NCAA every year. March is a busy time of year for me. And I love to play squash. I picked it up when I was 38 years old. It’s a great game.”

After earning his MBA, he worked six years as a financial analyst for the largest law firm in San Diego [Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich (now DLA Piper US).
“We used to represent some of the major brokerage houses in San Diego and I would testify as an expert witness when brokers would get sued by investors. I felt the industry had a lot of conflicts of interest. They were more sales oriented where they sold their own product. And I didn’t feel that people were getting objective, straight advice ….
“So what I wanted to do was create an independent platform where we could manage people’s money in an objective way. I could send my clients a bill and they could see what they were paying me and they didn’t have to wonder was I making money any other way.”
But, of course, when he launched his company at 34, he said, nobody had heard of Dowling & Yahnke and few companies set out to do what they promised to do.
“My goal was to go out and educate as many people as possible … and frankly we didn’t know whether it would work or not. We had no branding. We had no TV commercials.
“I’ve never made a cold call in my life,” he said. “The six years I spent with the law firm were the best six years I had spent in the business because I was able to make a lot of great contacts and people felt I was smart, ethical, hard working and passionate about what I do.
“I have a huge passion for the business,” he said.
“I bought my first stock when I was 9 years old. It was one of the shared passions I had with my dad.
Yahnke earned a degree in economics from Claremont McKenna College in 1979 followed with an MBA in finance from San Diego State in 1985 and certification as a Chartered Financial Analyst and Certified Financial Planner.
He and his business partner met while both were studying for the MBA’s at SDSU.
“We don’t take possession of any of our clients’ assets so when we manage people’s money, we don’t hold it here. That was the whole Bernie Madoff scandal… Madoff was the custodian.
“One of the key components of our success was Charles Schwab & Co [discount broker] providing an independent platform where we would set up our client accounts. They wouldn’t tell us what to do or what to sell or anything else. They would say, ‘These are your clients. We are just going to act as the custodian.’
“So what was really a relatively new industry and a new business for them allowed us, with a limited power of attorney, to manage clients’ money at an independent custodian (Schwab) that doesn’t pay us any money [freeing us] to do the best for our clients.”
In his charitable work, his main focus, he said, is to help kids that are disadvantaged or have disabilities. “It’s just what strikes me as something that’s important to do. I want kids to have a chance they probably don’t have and that I had as a kid.”
He, his partner Mark Dowling, and their employees devote service hours and financial support to more than 40 community causes each year.
“No wonder I’m not making very much money,” he joked.
“And it’s not the opera and places you’re trying to generate business from…but we do well enough in our business that we prefer to give back to entities that probably need it a little bit more and is more kid-focused.”
Yahnke currently serves as treasurer on the board of the Junior Seau Foundation, dedicated to empowering and educating disadvantaged youth in San Diego.
His lifetime hero was definitely his father, who grew up on a poultry farm in National City.
“My father [Ernie Yahnke] used to run Bank of America here in San Diego. He was manager of the main office and head of the San Diego region and he was very involved in the community and felt that was an important thing to do and I’ve kind of followed in his footsteps.
“He taught the Golden Rule by example. Do the right thing. He used to say, ‘With a name like Yahnke if you screw up, I’m going to come after you before your clients do.’”
The family name is of German origin. “Used to be spelled with a ‘J’. My great grandfather changed it to a ‘Y’. So the went from being called ‘Jahnke’ to ‘Yahnke.’
His philosophy of life, he said, is: “Keep it simple and always do the right thing.”
His business goal, he added, “Is to be the best at what I do. It was never to be the biggest. And I think the key to that is hiring people who are younger and smarter than I, and it’s getting easier to do all the time.”