In 1978, A Nevada Man Nicknamed ’40-Dollar Frank’ First Bought Shares Of Berkshire Hathaway. Three Decades Later Frank Fitzgerald Gathered His Family On The Deck Of His New Dream Home To Say “Thank you, Warren.”

Frank Fitzpatrick bought ~200 shares of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) at $40 in 1976, sold after 14 months when the stock doubled, then bought back in at a higher price.

Fitzpatrick used his Berkshire gains to buy a Lake Tahoe lakefront home, fund an education nonprofit, and leave shares to his two children.

Fitzpatrick's habit of running back to Berkshire despite a painful early exit shows temperament, not timing, drives long-term investing success.

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In 1995, a family gathered on the deck of a newly purchased lakefront home in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. According to The Wall Street Journal , they came together "for a group hug and said, 'Thank you, Warren'". The homeowner was Frank Fitzpatrick, a Lake Tahoe tax lawyer known to friends as "Forty-Dollar Frank."

That deck scene came long after his first purchase of Berkshire Hathaway ( NYSE:BRK-B ) stock, which happened in early 1976. The sequence matters: he bought in early 1976, and the group hug on the deck followed in 1995. His story comes from reporter Anupreeta Das, whose Wall Street Journal article "Warren Buffett's Millionaires Club" was updated on October 21, 2015. Everything below reflects that October 2015 account.

His story is worth retelling because it centers on a mistake, and on what a disciplined investor does after making one.

A $40 Purchase That Started Everything in Early 1976

In early 1976, Fitzpatrick bought about 200 Berkshire Hathaway shares at $40 each. Das counts him among Berkshire's army of unlikely millionaires, a group of ordinary investors who built wealth by owning the stock.

His path into that group was far from a straight line.

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