Unlike many in the municipal bond market, Frank Fairman's career has been spent at one firm — Minneapolis-based Piper Sandler — which he joined in 1983 as a nascent investment banker and where he has headed public finance services since 1991.
"I feel very fortunate to be at a firm that has been stable and didn't get bought up or swallowed up," he said. "A lot of people have been in the business for many, many years at multiple firms, but it hasn't necessarily been their choice, with firms getting bought or sold or getting out of the business."
During his tenure, Fairman led the growth of Piper Sandler from less than $10 million in public finance revenue to close to $200 million, serving over 1,000 issuer clients annually, according to Deb Schoneman, Piper's president.
"Frank's incredible intellect, resiliency, optimism, and drive has inspired his team through some of the market's most challenging moments and [he] has been at the heart of Piper Sandler's public finance growth for a remarkable 40 years," she wrote in nominating Fairman for The Bond Buyer's Muni Hall of Fame.
Fairman, a Pittsburgh native who had no interest in moving to New York, said he wasn't sure exactly what public finance entailed when he was offered a job at what was then called Piper Jaffrey, which had a small team of bankers focused on deals in areas the company had retail brokers: the upper Midwest and then the Pacific Northwest.
His economics degree from Yale University and Master of Business Administration degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania did not provide much education about municipal bonds.
"You see a lot of people arrive in this business as opposed to growing up looking at this as a career," Fairman said, adding public finance proved to be a good spot for him. "I like the people, the clients, the purpose of what we do."
The sale of Piper's retail business to UBS in 2006 opened up possibilities for its public finance team.
"We didn't think of ourselves anymore as bound by a region where we had retail," Fairman recalled. "Now we can go anywhere in the country and we can build a national business."
The addition in 2008 of a group of California-based bankers from UBS, which was leaving public finance, and acquisitions, like Seattle-Northwest Securities in 2013, helped grow Piper's footprint.
"It was led more by being able to find people who fit than saying we want to be in this particular market or that particular market," Fairman said.
While he is credited with pioneering creative cash-flow borrowing programs for school districts and other innovative financings, Fairman has no favorites when it comes to muni deals.
"I feel as proud of doing an $8 million deal for a rural community as I do as being a lead manager for a half billion dollar deal for the city of San Antonio or Houston," he said.
Peter Hill, senior managing director at Ramirez & Co., called Fairman "an able and innovative competitor."
"Frank Fairman has improved the municipal industry by his leadership, his client focus and cultivation of strong bankers and future leaders," he said in support of the Hall of Fame nomination.
In addition to his day job, Fairman has served on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board and the Bond Market Association board, while also being involved in civic and charitable endeavors.
With his wife, Jill Harmon, he co-founded Beyond Walls, an organization that marries his love of squash with mentorship of economically disadvantaged students.
