Dan Wheeler, Influential DFA Leader, Dies at 77

Dan Wheeler, the founder of the Dimensional Fund Advisors Financial Advisor Services group who is widely credited with bringing modern portfolio theory to the community of fee-only financial advisors, has died. He was 77.

Wheeler resigned from DFA in October 2010.

His cause of death has not been publicly revealed, but Wheeler’s friends and family confirmed the news in a flood of posts on LinkedIn and Twitter, and major media outlets like the Financial Times quickly began publishing obituaries recalling both his influence on the investment advisory industry and the many twists and turns Wheeler’s professional life had taken.

Writing to ThinkAdvisor about the news, retirement income expert Alex Murguia said that most people in the industry know of DFA and its success in the advisory space — but not everyone understands just how influential Wheeler was.

“I can say with full confidence that, without Dan, there is no DFA in the space,” Murguia said. “He was a true giant and advocate for advisors and their consumers. He was a larger-than-life personality and as much a part of DFA’s success as anyone. There are so many Dan stories floating around and his influence reverberates.”

As Murguia and others are emphasizing, throughout his career, Wheeler helped build the advisor community and changed investment advice in retail markets, working to transform what was a broker-driven system into one centered on financial education and coaching.

After leaving DFA, Wheeler remained deeply passionate about the need for change up until his death, his friends and family say. To that end, he created a blog, WheelerWrites.com, dedicated to speaking “self-evident truths that get buried by those whose self-interest is threatened by the truth.”

Life Before DFA

Prior to his life in financial services, Wheeler served as an officer in the U.S. Marines, having volunteered during the height of the Vietnam War. In his blog and in various public interviews, Wheeler said he found the rigidity of the military to be a significant personal challenge, and he also spoke frankly about the horrors of war.

After leaving the military following the birth of his daughter, Wheeler worked as a corporate controller in London. He also engaged in significant philanthropy projects in Central America and Africa.

One particularly notable period during his life before DFA came during his early 30s, when Wheeler worked in Saudi Arabia for Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi businessman and arms dealer known for his lavish business deals and lifestyle. Khashoggi was one of the richest men in the world at that time, having amassed more than $4 billion by the early 1980s.

As Wheeler wrote in his blog in 2016, the late ’70s was an “exciting time to be there,” as the Saudis used their rapidly expanding oil wealth to modernize their country and turned to the West to aid in this project.

Before his arrival at Dimensional, Wheeler worked at Arthur Andersen & Co., and was the controller of Triad International Marketing, a London-based consulting firm. In the late 1980s, after working as a brokerage professional for Merrill Lynch, he made the rare move of spinning out his practice and founded a fee-only advisory firm.

Accomplishments at DFA

In a new post on DFA’s website, Dave Butler, co-chief executive officer, picks up the story of how Wheeler ended up at DFA.

“Dan was the best of the best,” Butler says. “He was passionate about doing the right thing. He always looked out for the best interests of others, and he approached every day with a smile.

“Dan was sure that a model built around the best interest of the client would win,” Butler recalls. “That was my ‘aha’ moment, and I know of so many others through the years who have said the same about Dan.”

Butler says that Wheeler holds many distinctions, but among them is being the first financial advisor to work with Dimensional. He shifted from being an advisor to joining Dimensional in 1989, starting the firm’s financial advisor business.