Our History
Grandfield & Dodd LLC was founded in 2001 by Cheryl L. Grandfield, Richard W. Dodd and James P. Samuels. With investment managers increasingly gravitating toward centralized and standardized investment products, Cheryl, Richard and Jim saw an opportunity to appeal to individuals and families willing to resist the complexity of pooled investment products in order to favor the construct of direct ownership of individual stocks and bonds, knowing this approach is also well suited to considerations of risk control, tax-efficiency, and individual preferences.
Today, Grandfield & Dodd, LLC is marked by a singular impulse to protect each client’s financial flexibility over the twists of a lifetime and beyond. We are led by our enthusiasm for the open-ended nature of equity investment as a powerful engine for supporting the preservation and building of wealth over time, with close attention to the important role of bonds in most individual and family investment equations. We remain alert to the possible implications of ever-changing tax and legal policies as related to family wealth. We particularly value ongoing conversation with our clients and a shared written record that promotes mutual understanding.
Cheryl has invested assets for high net worth families for more than forty-five years, focusing on individual client circumstances and identifying strategic investment steps forward, an approach that has shaped Grandfield & Dodd, LLC. Cheryl co-founded Grandfield & Dodd, LLC in 2001 following nearly 25-years with Brundage, Story & Rose where she was named partner in 1984. A graduate of St. Lawrence University, and later Fordham University’s graduate business program, Cheryl gained early grounding in matters of estates and trusts when on staff with the Personal Trust Investment Department of Bankers Trust Co. from 1973 to 1976. Cheryl is a Trustee Emerita of St. Lawrence University, where as an undergraduate she was able to pursue dual passions for all that the English language can offer in clarity, of expression, and an appreciation of economic theory in the applied setting.
Richard’s investment career spanned just shy of a half-century, including nearly twenty years with Grandfield & Dodd, LLC, a company he co-founded in 2001, and almost two decades with The Bank of New York, where he was a senior portfolio manager of tax-exempt bond portfolios for high net worth individuals. An enthusiast of the capital markets, Richard was at ease with bonds and stocks alike, ultimately choosing to focus professionally on municipal bond research and portfolio management. Richard greatly enjoyed the research aspects of his municipal bond roles with grounding as a municipal credit analyst from 1977 to 1979 at W.H. Mell Associates Inc., a municipal bond dealer firm. Like co-founder and spouse Cheryl Grandfield, Richard’s training in estates and trusts was strong, having begun his investment career in the Personal Trust Department of Bankers Trust Co. in 1970. Richard died in 2019.
Jim began his career as an equity research analyst at U.S. Trust in 1976 and held similar positions at McLeod, Young & Weir, Shearson Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch, and Brundage, Story & Rose. He focused on research of multi-industry companies at Salomon Smith Barney and was a Managing Director and the Director of Equity Research at CIGNA Investors, Inc. Prior to joining Cheryl and Richard to start Grandfield & Dodd,LLC, Jim was a Managing Director and senior equity analyst at BancAmerica Securities LLC. Jim retired from Grandfield & Dodd, LLC in 2009.