Rich had the honor of delivering this eulogy at Greer’s memorial service November 5, 2011
Many years ago, if you were sitting in the waiting room for your doctor or dentist, you could almost always count on finding 3 or 4 of the most recent editions of Reader’s Digest. Not so much anymore. But I remember there was always one article in every Reader’s Digest titled, “My Most Unforgettable Character”. It wasn’t necessarily the BEST person or the WORST person….just the most unforgettable. At that time, I didn’t think much of it and I don’t recall ever actually reading one of those articles. It didn’t mean much to me then because, at that time, I didn’t feel I had ever met someone whom I would consider my “most unforgettable” character.
I hadn’t met anyone at that time who, if you attended a baseball game with them, by the seventh inning, you knew everyone in your entire section. I hadn’t met anyone who, if he felt the need to make a point, his face somehow got six inches from your face. I hadn’t met anyone who could really irritate me and still be so damn likeable.
How many of you not only remember the first time you met Greer….but VIVIDLY remember the first time you met Greer?
For me, it was 1982. I was a rookie stockbroker at a Wall Street Brokerage firm called Kidder, Peabody. I was young and knew absolutely nothing and one day Greer walked in….and, as fate would have it, I must have been “broker of the day”….and he just sat down next to my desk in the bullpen. I distinctly remember him asking me in that loud Greer voice, “have you heard of a company called Glaxo?”
I’m sure everyone in the bullpen could hear him and I told him I didn’t know anything about Glaxo. It was 1982 and foreign stocks didn’t trade much on U.S. stock exchanges and I was a rookie. Greer was a sales rep for Lederle Labs at the time but he knew something about this new drug that Glaxo made. He and Cynthia weren’t wealthy people at the time….which was perfect because I didn’t have any clients and I would take anyone who could breathe.
He opened an account with me, bought some shares of Glaxo and…..well, months later Glaxo went up and he sold it. Several months later, he asked me if I knew anything about Mylan Labs, a generic drug maker. No, I didn’t know anything about Mylan Labs. But Greer bought some shares and it more than doubled in less than a year.
Over the next several years, I don’t recall what we did investment-wise. Greer and Cynthia weren’t particularly wealthy clients at that time. But we became good friends. It’s hard to spend very much time with Greer without becoming good friends. That’s what Greer did.
We talked basketball. A lot of basketball. During their years in Kansas City, Greer and Cynthia became Royals fans and Chiefs fans and, what would come to haunt Greer many years later (2008), he became a Kansas Jayhawk basketball fan.
It was April 4th, 1988, Greer met me at the Marriott hotel on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. It was the afternoon of the NCAA basketball tournament national championship. The Jayhawks were playing the Oklahoma Sooners that night IN Kansas City at Kemper Arena. I had tickets and Greer did not. I said to Greer, “Greer, it’s KU versus Oklahoma. It’s the national championship. It’s in Kansas City. This will NEVER happen again in your life. You HAVE to go. There is a guy over there across the lobby scalping tickets. Let’s pool our money (no ATM machines in 1988) and go offer him $200 and see if he will sell you a ticket. I know the seat next to me will be empty so you can sit by me no matter where the ticket is.” Larry Finch, the Memphis coach at that time, had sat in that seat during the semi-finals Saturday night and said to me he would not be at the finals.
Greer thought for a minute….I could tell he was really tempted. And he finally blurted out, “okay, let me go call Cynthia”. You see, Greer loved basketball a lot….but he loved Cynthia more. He went to a pay phone (it was 1988), came back and said, “OK, I can go”. The scalper accepted his $200. He sat next to me at the game. And it was an incredible game. My wonderful business partner for the past 17 years, Mindy Corporon was a cheerleader for Oklahoma in 1988 and was on the court at that game so she does not like hearing this story so much. She and I would not meet each other and start working together until 5 years after that game and we have different memories of that night.
Many of you may not remember but it was an incredible game played at breakneck speed which Danny Manning and the Miracles won. Most people don’t recall that the halftime score was 50-50. It was a track meet…a ping-pong match. And Greer and I were going crazy.
After the game, Greer and I and a bunch of our friends were outside the arena whooping and hollering and celebrating when Greer loudly announced (which is redundant because Greer never quietly announced anything), “I gotta find that guy who sold me that ticket for $200!”. We all just stopped quietly and perplexed, said to him, “why?”. Greer, with his loud voice and a grin that promised – this is going to be a good line – said, “because I owe him another hundred!”
And then, the life changing moment….
He came into my office one day a year later and said, “I have been offered a new job by a company called Amgen. Have you heard of them?” I told him I had heard of Amgen but I didn’t know much about Amgen. As I was flipping through some research to find information about Amgen, he said, “well, they didn’t offer me any more money than I am making now but they guaranteed me a bonus at the end of the year and they said something about stock options”.
I put down the research and said, “take the job”.
He said, “what?”
I said, “take the job. If it doesn’t work out, you can get another job. If it works out, you could be wealthy beyond your imagination.” Since then I have joked that I made that statement because Greer had a limited imagination. But that wasn’t true. Imagination was only one of his outstanding qualities. I told him to take the job because, in 1989, stock options were typically not offered to rank and file sales reps. They were almost always given only to officers of the company and upper management.
When I gave that advice, what I thought was….this 37 year-old guy….when he is at normal retirement age 65….28 years later, he and Cynthia might have $1 million more than they would have had otherwise….because of the stock options. Little did I know that in less than 3 years, they would be millionaires. That his retirement age ended up being closer to 50 instead of 65. Turns out I was the one with limited imagination.
All of us can look back on our careers….our course in life….and think of one or two individuals who had a hand in our successes. Whether it was intentional or unintentional, they helped you achieve the success you desired….they helped validate you. NO ONE has had a larger effect on my life and my career….and Mindy’s career….than Greer. NO ONE. Not even close. For some reason, Greer took it upon himself to be an ambassador for Boyer & Corporon Wealth Management. I don’t know why. I didn’t ask him to do that. That’s just what Greer did. If he liked you, he wanted everyone else to like you. He wanted everyone else to know what he knew.
Today, Boyer & Corporon Wealth Management manages around $230 million. And we can trace $80 million to Greer.
But it didn’t come just because he liked us. Oh, no. The tradeoff (and it was a difficult tradeoff but a good tradeoff) was that we had to listen to Greer’s constructive criticism. Greer wasn’t just our biggest fan. He was our largest critic. It was painful at times. Sometimes extremely painful. There were days I didn’t want to answer the phone if I knew it was Greer. Greer told us things we didn’t want to hear. He told us things that made us uncomfortable….that made us look at how we did things.
But as painful as it was, it always made us better. That’s what Greer did. He didn’t allow you to be average or mediocre. You had to be better. You had to be more responsive. You had to constantly improve. He had referred other people to us, dammit, and we couldn’t make him look bad.
Our business structure is a partnership, not a corporation so we don’t have an official Board of Directors. But we have always had an unofficial Board of Directors. And Greer has always been the Chairman of our unofficial Board of Directors. Whenever we were going to try something new or make any kind of change, we would run it by Greer. It wasn’t that he just gave good advice or bad advice. It was that he gave us REAL advice. He was going to tell us what he thought….not what he thought we wanted to hear. Greer NEVER told you just what he thought you wanted to hear. He didn’t even know how to think that way. It never even occurred to him that you might want to hear something other than what he was just about to tell you.
That was his beauty. He was real. He was genuine.
Greer called me a couple years ago when he found out about his cancer. It wasn’t an easy call to take. And I realized the most incredible run was coming to an end….for me, it was my 29 year run of Richard and Greer….making money in the stock market….watching KU basketball….watching our kids grow up….seeing Greer retire and leave Amgen in 1999, at precisely the absolute PEAK of the price of Amgen’s stock. How incredibly lucky is that? He left Amgen and cashed in his stock options 11 years ago and the stock price is lower today than it was then?
He got to spend the next ten years being husband to Cynthia and father to Nathan and Derek. At our end of the phone, we got to hear about MUS High School…..and girlfriends…..and guitars…..and Alabama…..and MUS football…..and Samford…..and life after Alabama…..and getting into pharmacy school…..and putting on the white coat.
He called me on Tuesday, October 5th to tell me the battle was over….that the doctor told him he had a 50/50 chance of making it to Christmas. I hopped in my car the next week and drove to Memphis.
While I was there, Greer, Cynthia and I went out to dinner. He looked weak and frail and dragged his oxygen tank with him to the restaurant. It was somewhat of a production just getting in and out of the car. And when we got seated in the restaurant, it appeared that just the trip to the restaurant had wiped him out. After he sat down, looking frail and weak, he opened his mouth and…………STARTED TALKING SO LOUD THE WHOLE DAMN RESTAURANT COULD HEAR HIM!!!….at least for a little while….until he started coughing. And in that moment, I realized that cancer was eventually going to kill Greer but cancer was never going to BEAT Greer. He wouldn’t let it. When I get cancer, I’m gonna remember that.
There are many words I can use to describe Greer but if I was only allowed to select one word it would be “animated”. Some people, when they talk they light up….like a cartoon….and they make the entire room around them light up and everyone becomes transfixed as they listen. Sometimes he would go on and on and at times you might wish for him to shut up….at least for a minute. But his animation kept you transfixed.
If you were around Greer much, he became part of you…..you became part of him. He didn’t spend much time with superficial relationships.
For that reason, even though Greer is gone,
I won’t miss his enthusiasm…..he left it with me.
I won’t miss his optimism…..he made me glad for the future.
I won’t miss his passion for things in life…..he infected me with that.
I won’t miss his desire to always be better…..he drilled that into me.
Thank you for listening.
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