Their parents paid for basics such as clothes, Jeff says, but everything else-money for cars, dating, traveling-had to be paid by the sons.
"We had to budget," Jeff recalls. "If you decided you didn't want to work for a semester, you had to decide how you were going to save the money you needed to get by."
The brothers, who each have a son and a daughter, are trying to take a similar approach with their own children. A Kanaly family foundation was formed 10 years ago, as well as a family savings plan under which Deane Kanaly matches his grandchildren's deposits dollar-for-dollar. The senior Kanaly also gives his grandchildren $100 each Christmas to give to charity. Before gifts are opened each year, the children tell the family to whom they gave the money and why.
To make sure the children broaden their experiences, the family has set rules under which the grandchildren can enter the family business. Among the conditions: Before they can be hired at Kanaly Trust Co., the children must have worked for three years or more somewhere else and received at least two promotions.
"We just want them to have experience with other things," Steve says. "Me and my brothers sort of did, but not as much as we would have liked. We were young when we started."
Steve says his father's focus on people is the reason for his success and why he and his brothers were attracted to the trust company. With about $1.8 billion in assets under management, more than 1,500 clients and 95 employees, the company has grown by addressing all aspects of its clients' lives.
"For some clients, we literally walked the dog, got the pool cleaned, got the house painted," Steve Kanaly says. "These services are very valuable to a corporate executive who's always busy traveling."
Strategies and final investment decisions are made in-house, with the help of research from 15 outside firms. "We insist on having access to the analysts who select the stock," Steve Kanaly says.
The company uses a mix of individual stocks and mutual funds for its equity investments. Most clients' assets, he says, are split 50-50 between equities and bonds. "Right now, we have a lot of short bonds and a lot of cash for buying opportunities," he adds.
From the time the firm was founded in 1975 through 1999, its investments have yielded an average annual return of 17.3%, compared with 15.5% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and 16% for the S&P 500.