Like many families, our story really has several beginnings, including a long entrepreneurial tradition of investments in liquid markets, as well as energy, real estate, and retail businesses.

Our grandfather, Walter Thomas Woodward, moved from Waco Texas to Taft California in 1935, married the love of his life Marcella Vanderhoof, and found success working as a geologist. He later owned the Lincoln/Mercury dealership in Taft while amassing a portfolio of energy assets and real estate. He had four children, Jane, Mary, Tom, and Paul.

After graduating college, Tom served in the Army, married his high school sweetheart, Constance, and then took his first job in finance in 1972. Tom and Connie moved back to the central valley in late 1977, and had three sons, Beau, Gabriel, and Matthew. Tom quickly rose to branch manager of the local Dean Witter (now Morgan Stanley) office in 1980, a position he held until leaving Morgan Stanley in 2003. While working at Dean Witter, Tom helped organize and participated in multiple private equity and venture capital opportunities, including one that ended up being widely recognized, Chuck E. Cheese. He also was in the inaugural class of Certified Investment Management Analysts (CIMA) held at the Wharton Business School in Pennsylvania in 1986. If you ask him, he still has his class photo!

In 1987 Tom hired Rosalie Thompson to work at Dean Witter, and the two have been working together for 33 years. Over his long career, Tom has seen several recessions and market crashes. He is an experienced advisor who has helped coordinate many complex ultra-high net worth estate plans and navigated some of the most notoriously difficult economic cycles in the post-WWII era.

Tom's sons, Beau and Gabe, both followed their father into the finance industry in 1998 and 2004, respectively. While they both swam at USC, Gabe went on to compete in the 2004 Olympics, held in Greece, earning a bronze medal in the 4x100 freestyle relay, as well as the Pan American Games in Brazil in 2007 where he was the team captain and won multiple medals.

Beau married his wife Jennifer in 2002, and they have four children: Jackson, Rebecca, Roman, and Chase. Together they helped plant a local church, Sovereign Grace, and enjoy serving it in various capacities over the years.

Gabe married his wife Staci in 2002, and they have four children: Reese, Hudson, Daxton, and Becket. Together they launched the Bakersfield Swim Academy, which has served the Kern county community since 2008. They are actively involved serving their church, Grace Bible, where Gabe is a deacon, and they have each enjoyed leading local Bible studies over the years.

At Woodward Diversified Capital, while Tom, Beau, and Gabe have extensive investment expertise, they truly believe that faith and family are the most important aspects of life. As such, they aim to serve their friends and clients so they can… "do the things they want to do, when they want to do them."