I started my Futures career in 1982 as runner on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. As the years passed, and I progressed to running a currency desk and then completed college, the world changed dramatically. The US and global economies changed, the global political landscape changed,
and our markets changed. We have more products, electronic trading, participation by more and larger institutions, mergers of exchanges, and more attention from the media to name a few.

One subject that has remained the same is the paramount importance of risk or money management
in trading. The bottom line is, risk management allows for failure of trades, but seeks to prevent the failure of those trades from becoming catastrophic to the trader’s equity.

After I graduated from college, I went to work for a discount brokerage firm. I started seeing trading results in real dollar terms as opposed to just executing trades on the floor at the CME. I started paying attention to the issue of risk and how it affected trading results.

Years later, as I was developing my skills as a broker, I was intrigued when I read comments by some
of the top traders in the world. Several stated that risk management was by far the most important issue in trading. One said it was responsible for as much as 90% of the success of a trading system. This sparked more curiosity about this subject.

While I was a Risk Manager for a small firm, I spent a significant amount of time watching traders
and what they did right or wrong. I kept coming back to the issue of risk management and used my experience to develop my brokerage style.

To state it simply, I believe the single greatest service I can provide my clients is to keep reminding
them of this issue and to try to get them to automatically incorporate it into their trading decision
making. Further, I believe getting traders to acknowledge the importance of addressing risk and
coupling it with a disciplined and systematic approach to their trading is the key to having a chance
of trading success.

I started implementing this brokerage style in January 2000 when I started what has become Providio Trading.

I retired from the Illinois National Guard in May 2007 after 27 years. I live with my wife and daughter
in Lombard, Illinois.