History
Four Generations of Expertise
For more than 85 years, the Dow family has helped individuals, families, businesses, and nonprofit organizations navigate changing market conditions and pursue their financial goals. What began as a small Maine brokerage practice in the 1930s has grown into a multi-generational advisory firm built on trust, long-term relationships, and a commitment to personalized service.
Today, Dow Capital Management combines decades of market experience with a disciplined, long-term approach to investing. As an independent firm, we provide objective advice grounded in established financial principles rather than short-term market trends. By integrating investment management with broader financial, retirement, and estate planning goals, we help clients build, preserve, and transfer wealth with confidence.
Independent by Choice
As the financial services industry has evolved, many firms have been acquired, merged, or absorbed into larger organizations. Throughout these changes, Dow Capital Management has remained independently owned and family operated.
We believe independence allows us to focus on what matters most: our clients. Without the influence of proprietary products, corporate sales goals, or outside ownership, we are free to provide objective advice and investment strategies tailored to each client’s unique circumstances. This commitment to independence has been a defining characteristic of our firm for generations and remains central to how we serve clients today.
The Dow Family in the Investment Brokerage Business
by Clifford G. Dow, Sr. (1936-2025)
“There is apparently a stockbroker gene in our branch of the Dow Family. The Dow’s first started in the brokerage business in the late 1930s when my uncle became a stockbroker in 1937 and my father, Cliff,Sr., joined him in 1939. Their younger brother came on board shortly after World War II. The fourth sibling of the first generation, a sister, served as a secretary to her three brothers some years later; and, during all my father’s years in the business, my mother, Louise, served him in a part-time secretarial capacity. After my dad passed away in 1974, my mom continued to work in our office for several years; and, until she passed away in 2003, at age eighty-eight, she was monitoring the financial news channel on CNBC and faxing us summaries of what was going on in the world – its economies, politics, business developments, and stock markets. Because she knew what we needed to know and transmitted it to us when we needed to know it, we considered our “Nannygrams” of more value to us than even our Wall Street Journal.
When I joined the family business in 1962, the Dows worked out of an office in Lewiston, Maine. Each of the other two first generation Dow brothers also had a son who came into the business in the years that followed; hence, we had three more Dow brokers for the second generation. As our own four boys went away to school, my wife, Barbara, also began to come into the office to assist us on a part-time basis.
Our four sons, Cliff, Jr., Russell, Michael, and Bill, who constitute the third generation, each began to learn the business by helping out in the office during his college summer breaks. As each finished school, he decided he would give the brokerage business a try full-time, and each has been in the business ever since.”
Clifford Dow, Sr. (1936-2025 )
Clifford Dow is a native of, and grew up in, New England. He graduated in 1957 with a Bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard College, and in 1960 with a Master of Business Administration degree in finance from the Harvard Business School. He was a Chartered Financial Analyst, a Chartered Financial Consultant, a Certified Financial Planner, and a graduate of the College for Financial Planning.
Clifford started his career in the investment business in 1962 as a securities analyst on Wall Street, and has been in the investment business continuously for over four decades. He is the Chief Investment Officer for Dow Capital Management, LLC.
For a number of years, as a member of the faculty of the Continuing Education Division of the University of Maine, he taught courses in business management and organization, accounting, business mathematics and statistics, financial management, and policy formulation and administration.
