If you only had one word to describe William Eigen III, ’90 it’d have to be value-driven. At 16, the only car he could afford was one that didn’t run. A Mustang, he towed it back to his dad’s driveway, got it running perfectly, and drove it for a year. Then he sold it and tripled his money, repeating the process through college to pay tuition.

“Every week, I’d look for signs of a desperate seller in the want ads. Freshman year I found a ’72 Mustang Mach 1 for $2,000. I worked on it for about three weeks, got it running perfectly, and sold it for $4,500. It was a great way to earn extra money because I really enjoyed doing it; it wasn’t work. In college, when you don’t have two nickels to rub together, making that much at a clip was pretty good,” he recalls.

That early lesson in economics bolstered his confidence to make bold moves. Figure in his driven work ethic and value-hunting philosophy and it adds up to a successful career. He started at Cigna and earned his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. Fidelity came calling, then he started his own hedge fund, and eventually leapfrogged to JPMorgan, where he created the Strategic Income Opportunities Fund (JSOSX). Today it’s JPMorgan’s flagship fixed income fund, and Eigen’s title is founder and chief investment officer of the Absolute Return Group for JPMorgan.

“I treat bonds just like I treated those cars. I try to find cheap stuff that’s trading well below what I think is its intrinsic value, scoop it up, put it in a portfolio, and just wait. Eventually that value gets realized, and I take them out when they get too rich.”

Bill attributes much of his success to URI and the faculty who had a profound impact on him. “Professor Gordon Dash is a good example. He pushed me, he appreciated my work ethic, but he didn’t cut me any slack. I was like a sponge, going to him for advice on career paths and what the working world was like.”

He’s a firm believer in the value of a URI education and doesn’t want students to feel their careers are limited because they went to a state university. It’s a lesson he tries to impart when he guest-lectures for Professor Dash or helps on Career Day.

“I know it’s cliché, but you get out of school what you put into it. If you have a good attitude and you’re driven, you’ll find it doesn’t matter if you’re at Harvard, Yale, or URI. It’s about the effort you put into achieving your goals.”

In 2016, Bill created an endowed professorship in finance to support quality faculty, like those who helped him succeed. “With the endowment, I know business students are going to see the benefit.”

He still loves muscle cars and his collection has grown to six. His dream car, a 2015 Dodge Challenger Hellcat, is the most powerful production car ever built in the U.S.—and production number 40 in lime green resides in his garage. Shortly after he bought it, someone offered him $40,000 more than he paid for it.

–Diane M. Sterrett