Galvin-izing U.S. Trust

Laid off as a portfolio strategist at Credit Suisse First Boston earlier this year, Galvin, 42, is excited to be getting back to his roots as a money manager. Last month he took over as CIO of Campbell, Cowperthwait, the troubled growth-investing unit of $81 billion-in-assets U.S. Trust.

From his office at U.S. Trust, Galvin can look out across Manhattan’s 47th Street to J.P. Morgan Chase and see the floor where he got his start as a junior money manager in Chase Manhattan’s private banking business. Now, two decades later, his rather more demanding job is to turn Campbell, Cowper-thwait around: The firm has suffered from the bursting of the stock bubble.

“At U.S. Trust we have a very respectable value product, and we want to really commit ourselves to building a very credible growth product -- as a bookend, in a sense,” Galvin says. “It’s an organization that is embracing change and giving me flexibility to reorient ourselves and refocus on creating superior returns for our investors.”

But will Galvin -- who spiced up the dry discipline of portfolio strategy by peppering his reports with references to Bruce Springsteen songs -- miss pontificating on market trends? Apparently not. “To me, if you’re serious about investing,” he says, “stop talking about it and do it.”

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