Designing Investment Success: Alumnus Jeff Mowry aids financial advisors, SPC student

1/30/2025

Jeff Mowry’s future forever changed at an Albertsons checkout line, taking him from a job tabulating the cost of groceries for shoppers to a thriving career customizing financial services for clients. And for the past decade, the St. Petersburg College alumnus has been paving the way for SPC students wanting to follow in his inspiring fiscal footsteps.

Today, Mowry serves as senior financial designer for Clearwater-based Universal Financial Consultants (UFC). Life is good — he supervises six members of a financial design analysis team, five of whom were recruited directly from SPC, and has also helped onboard another 10 SPC alumni into other departments. He and his wife of nearly 22 years, Jenny, have a primary home in the beautiful mountains of Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and another home in Austin, Texas, where they spent the past three years helping their son and daughter-in-law raise their first grandchild.

And Mowry gets to work remotely as a key member of an organization regarded as an industry expert in a niche field, specializing in what is termed premium finance. “We’re what’s called an IMO — Independent Marketing Organization,” Mowry said. “We represent products such as life insurance and annuities to independent financial advisors, who in turn offer those products to their clients.”

All of this, of course, is a long way from where Mowry found himself some 35 years ago. As a Seminole High School senior, his world profoundly changed when he became a teenage parent. “I stepped it up as soon as I realized, ‘Oh, I’m going to be a father,’ ” he said. “I needed to learn how to be responsible.”

In 1991, Mowry graduated from Seminole and immediately began taking classes at SPC to honor his grandparents, who had set up a two-year Florida pre-paid tuition college fund for him. And while working on his Associate in Arts degree, Mowry began to move up at Albertsons. Despite the challenges, he maintained a positive attitude, buoyed by encouraging words he had heard as a high school senior from a guest speaker in a work training class.

“The man’s name was Frank Mathias, who connected with students in a way that really elevated how I thought,” Mowry recalled. “The enthusiasm he had and his direct way of letting people know that you can step up and do better in life really impacted me. I never forgot it.”

All the while, Mowry juggled studies, fatherhood and shared custody, as well as his busy grocery job. It was there that a regular shopper named Rick Tuberosa always noticed Mowry’s upbeat disposition whenever he went through his line.

“Rick said that he wished his employees had a great attitude like mine, so I asked, ‘What do you do?’ and he explained that he worked nearby at a stock brokerage,” Mowry said. “He was the president of the company and he gave me his card. And then he said, ‘Jeff, why don’t you come work with me instead of working here?’ ”

Still only 19, Mowry couldn’t believe his good fortune, and accepted the offer, leading to seven years learning the financial service business from a retail perspective, mentored by Tuberosa each step of the way. Mowry didn’t give up on college and eventually earned his associate degree after seven years along with financial services industry licensing. “It was a story of persistence, but I finally earned my degree while working full time,” he said.

Mowry took a break from school to focus on work, and eventually left Tuberosa’s company when it merged, trying his hand in the real estate business. That didn’t pan out, so he went to work for a wealth management company in Clearwater while re-enrolling at SPC to earn his bachelor’s degree in finance. That proved to be a life-changing move.

Mowry delved into his classes and developed a bond with Professor Dr. Robin Wilber. In his senior year, he and his fellow finance students engaged in the capstone project Business Strategy Game for their final class — the task of managing the finances of a fictional shoe store, with 10 teams of three competing against one another over 10 weeks to see who made the best strategic choices. Mowry’s team won.

Then things began to fall into place in a way he could never have envisioned. After graduating in 2014, he asked his wealth management company boss for a raise. “He responded, ‘Jeff, I have a project for you — can you help me close my business?’ ” Mowry said. “That’s not what I was expecting to hear.”

Still, Mowry agreed, unsure of his next move. He had a four-year degree and suddenly no job. But as fate would have it, a finance executive named Tim Kelly stopped in the soon-to-close company one day and approached him. “He said, ‘Jeff, I’ve been working with you and this company for years, and now it’s closing. I know what you do here. Why don’t you come interview with the president of our company?’ ”

That company was UFC, led by President Vincent Munno. After being hired on, it didn’t take long for Mowry to come to an important realization: the analytical work he was doing at UFC was similar to the approach he used in his SPC capstone project for Dr. Robin Wilber. “When I started at UFC, we always asked, ‘What’s the optimal way to do the very best financial design work for our clients?’ ” he said. “And I thought, ‘I just learned this in my capstone analysis. Now this is my job!’ ”

So he visited Wilber, told her of the similarities, and asked if she would recommend any promising students to work for UFC. That formed the groundwork for a steady pipeline of SPC talent to UFC that continues to this day. Over time, Mowry began attending capstone presentations and gauging prospective employees. The connection became so strong that UFC began awarding $1,000 to a winning team each semester.

Today, thanks to Mowry’s efforts, UFC has begun partnering with the SPC Foundation and continues its relationship with SPC finance professors — following 10 years of leadership from Wilber, who recently retired. “We don’t have to pay a headhunter to go find us talent,” Mowry said. “We let the SPC capstone students know about the award, and we invite them to our office for a hiring event every semester where we celebrate their accomplishments and let them know more about us as a company.”

“Jeff is the kind of person who really wants to make a difference and put the time in to help people — to inspire, educate and motivate them,” Munno said. “He’ll give people the tools but let them think it out themselves.”

“Our partnership with SPC has been such a positive,” said Vincent Munno, UFC President. A lot of our work involves thinking of solutions for problems and articulating it in presentations. The students we get from SPC are already very good at that.”

Fittingly, the UFC prize for SPC students is now named the Dr. Robin Wilber Analysis Accuracy Award, and a plaque hangs with the names of winning teams in the UFC Clearwater office. Mowry still visits that office several times a year, but mostly he’s working hard at a career he loves, enjoying his growing family with wife Jenny, and living the “premium life” between Texas and Tennessee — light years removed from that teen with an unknown future at the Albertsons checkout line.

“Our SPC alumni are the heartbeat of the local workforce,” Theresa McFarland, SPC Foundation
Executive Director of Annual Giving and Alumni Engagement Program. “Their skills, passion and dedication
not only drive economic growth but also enrich our community, making Pinellas County a better place to live, work, and thrive.”