Lifetime Excellence Award
2013 Recipient

Andrew Burish '73

Andrew Burish, a 1981 marketing graduate of UW-Eau Claire, will receive the Lifetime Excellence Award, which is presented to alumni who have demonstrated longtime and successful commitment to their careers and communities. Recipients have made positive and dramatic impacts through dedication to service and have lived their lives as a testimony to UW-Eau Claire's motto, "Excellence."
Burish was the first person in his family to attend college and is now one of the nation's top financial advisers. After receiving his marketing degree from UW-Eau Claire, Burish went on to earn a master's degree in business administration with an emphasis in finance and marketing from UW-Whitewater and accepted a job offer from UBS, a private wealth management company formerly known as the Union Bank of Switzerland, in 1982. Within 12 years at UBS, Burish was recognized as one of the top advisers in the firm.
In 1990 Burish invested his own savings to build and grow his own team, The Burish Group. Today, he controls approximately $2.8 billion in individual investors' assets and brings in upwards of $15 million a year for UBS and his team. He has one of the biggest teams for individual investors in the country, with 39 full-time employees and clients all over the world. For seven years in a row, Burish ranked among the top 50 out of approximately 250,000 financial advisers in the United States, according to Barron's, the oldest and most prestigious finance journal for investors worldwide, and he has been consistently ranked No. 1 in Wisconsin by Barron's for the last five years. This year he was named to the inaugural FT 400 list of top financial advisers published by the Financial Times of London.  

Burish and his wife, Anna, also are involved in numerous philanthropic activities. They give generously to the United Way and to their alma maters. He is on the donor base and investment committees for the UW-Eau Claire Foundation. In July, he will become chairman of UW-Whitewater's Foundation, where he previously served as chair of the investment committee and as treasurer.

View the list of past recipients of this award.