Photo courtesy of Stephen Davis
Stephen Davis is a financial advisor with Fairvoy Private Wealth and president of the Vestavia Hills Lions Club.
Stephen Davis is a financial advisor with Fairvoy Private Wealth and president of the Vestavia Hills Lions Club.
Q: Tell me a little about your background.
A: I originally grew up in Pinson, Alabama, and went to school at the University of Mobile on a golf scholarship and, after graduating from college, right after school went to work for Merrill Lynch as a financial advisor, so my background is in finance. I actually stayed with them for 25 years. My wife, Ashley, joined me in 2007 at Merrill, so we were a husband-and-wife team there. That’s where we stayed until April 5 of this year. We left Merrill and started our own independent advisory firm with another advisor called Fairvoy Private Wealth. I live in Vestavia now and have since about 2005, so I’ve been in Vestavia for quite a while.
Q: What is your position there with the company?
A: I’m managing partner, and I’m a senior private wealth advisor, so the majority of my time is spent primarily with clients around investment planning, investments, financial planning. We have several other employees who work with us.
Q: Is your office in Vestavia as well?
A: We did look for office space in Vestavia, but we’re actually located in Birmingham over off 280 right by Perry’s Steakhouse. It’s One Perimeter Park South.
Q: What motivated you to get involved with the Lions Club?
A: One of our neighbors here in Vestavia was a very long-term member named Dr. John Hodo. He was trying to recruit young people into the club. I probably was mid-20s at the time, maybe a little older. He said, “You need to get involved in your community.” He put the hard sell on me. He introduced me to Phil [Min] and the rest of the club, and they were very involved in servicing the community, so I did want to get involved in that.
Q: What are some of the things y’all do as a club?
A: We do try to help out with local events, so if there’s a need going on in Vestavia, like a charity drive or some type of walk-a-thon, … we help out with that. We do get donations for eyeglasses to help individuals who can’t afford eyeglasses. We’re involved in any area that we can be of help within the community. We often try to partner with other charities, and we’re normally involved with things like set-up and take-down. We do raise money through our club, mainly through our members, for things like Camp Seale-Harris. And of course we do work also with Vestavia High School, with their Leo Club. They do have a very active Leo club. I think it may be one of the largest in the state. They’re involved with their annual canned food drive. We usually help out with that. We’re a small club. We’re trying to grow. The club’s one of the oldest, I think, in the state actually. It’s been around for a long time, well before me. But we are like all these civic clubs. We do go through this period where unfortunately there’s not a lot of young people getting involved. We are trying to make more of that happen. We do meetings about twice a month. It’s on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month — 6:30. After COVID we started having Zoom meetings, and then we usually meet in person once a month. … Sometimes we’ll have outside speakers come in. A few years ago the mayor, Ashley Curry, came out and spoke to the group. The city manager of Vestavia came out to speak once, but we also have other non-for-profit leaders — they’ll come and share what they’re doing and even ways we can be helpful in the community with them.
Q: What’s the best part about living in Vestavia Hills?
A: I didn’t grow up here as a kid, but I’ve definitely gotten to appreciate the community that’s around us. Vestavia is a big enough city that you’ve got a lot going on, but at the same time, it’s not so big you don’t know anyone. A few months ago, we were moving from one area of Vestavia to another, but we purposefully said, “We want to stay in Vestavia.” We felt like that was simply because of the people we’ve gotten to know, the community, just being involved in the Vestavia Lions Club. There’s a lot of positives going on in the city, and my wife and I definitely appreciate that.
Q: How did you decide to pursue your career field?
A: For me, my parents were highly influential. My dad was a small independent insurance agent in the Gardendale and Pinson area. He dealt mainly with insurance, but it got me interested in the insurance and financial side, and after doing some research as I got older, I knew I basically loved working with the idea around stocks and investments. I got licensed very early on. It was through my father helping me get my license while I was still in college. Once I graduated, I was already ready to go to any firm that was interested. Merrill Lynch was one of the top ones that I was definitely interested in. Really over time, my impression of the industry changed. It’s not what you think it is sometimes as a young person. You think it’s about buying stocks and bonds. That’s not exactly what it is. I’m very involved as a financial planner. I’m a certified financial planner, so a lot of my time is helping clients figure out how to reach their goals and not just about picking stocks, which I’ve got to tell you in my early career — I thought that’s what it would be all about. So I really enjoyed it, and that’s something I want to continue to do. We’ve just had a lot of changes at Merrill over the years with the Bank of America merger and stuff like that. We decided to go a different route, but all of our clients came with us, so it was a very positive experience for us.
Q: What’s something about you people might be surprised to know?
A: Actually two things. One is I’m a private airplane pilot. My partner is actually JP Dice [a meteorologist with WBRC 6 News]. We own a small Mooney together. He and I met several years ago. He’s an instructor. I actually had my license before that, but we just came into communication with each other. He’s a very nice guy, a very good guy. That Mooney he often talks about is the one he and I own together. The other thing is I do play piano. Not a lot of people know that.
Q: What’s your favorite song to play on the piano?
A: I deal a lot more with classical. Probably “Clair de lune” is one of my favorites. I actually got interested in piano as a young kid because of a song everybody knows through the ice cream truck — “The Entertainer.” I do play some ragtime, but most of my memorization is around classical music.
Q: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would that be?
A: That’s what I need my wife for. That’s a tough one. … As I’ve gotten older, I want to make sure I’m leaving a lasting impact and not just being selfish about time. Being part of the Lions Club gives you the realization that there’s a lot of need out there. Vestavia is a pretty wealthy community over all, and sometimes we’re a little bit immune to that. … You sort of get surround by people with money. You start thinking, “Well that’s just the way it is.” You learn real quick that’s it not. One of the things I’ve attempted to change over time is being more generous — making sure you’re not living in that bubble. Step outside. Go help out other people. My parents were not extremely wealthy at all, but it’s not as if we were hurting for anything. One of the things we did as a kid and I try to do today is we were involved with helping families, particularly around the holidays. It gave me a chance to see sometimes what’s it like to really be in need. So I would say if I was changing one thing and still working on is always making sure we’re being generous with our time and money because there’s a lot of need out there. You definitely see that when you’re working with the Lions Club.
