Too Smart to be an Umpire

What do you do when your career aspiration is snatched away just as it’s about to be fulfilled? What happens when the dream you’ve pursued since childhood crashes and burns, leaving you broke at age 30?

You better have a damn good Plan B in place.

Jack Oujo spent eight years in the minor leagues pursuing the dream of becoming a major league umpire. This book takes you on his journey, from the decision to become an umpire, through the endless and often cramped travels, low pay, and interactions with players, managers and supervisory personnel, to his abrupt and callous release—by mail, no less.

What does someone do when their career vision becomes a nightmare? For Jack, this was no time for despondency. He was 30 years old, broke, and married with his first child on the way. He surmounted his disappointment and reinvented himself through a process of reeducation, mentorship, then starting a business on a bootstrap and ultimately growing it into a multi-million-dollar operation a decade later.

Jack Oujo CPA/PFS, CFP®, MS, is the founder of Oujo Wealth Strategies, one of the nation’s largest tax-focused wealth management firms. Jack’s journey to the top of his profession began, surprisingly enough, with an eight-year stint as a professional baseball umpire. He enjoyed numerous promotions, ultimately reaching the AAA level and winning the Joe Ryan Award as the highest-rated umpiring prospect in the minor leagues in 1985. Choosing umpires is subjective, however, and Jack was denied his ambition of becoming a major league umpire.

Undeterred, Jack used the setback as motivation for a successful business career. He had nurtured a Plan B while umpiring by working as an accountant in New York during the offseasons. This helped him make a seamless transition into the financial services industry, where he earned the Avantax Top Producer Award for 25 consecutive years and has been the brokerage’s leading advisor for the majority of the past decade.

Jack attended Old Bridge High School and was inducted into their Wall of Fame in 2013. He graduated from Middlesex County College with an associate degree in accounting, Seton Hall University with a bachelor’s degree in accounting, and he went on to earn a master’s degree in taxation from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

His community service includes running a free youth umpire clinic every February for the last twenty years. Jack was also president of the NJ/NY Chapter of the College Baseball Umpires Association (CBUA) and the freshman baseball coach at St. Rose High School in Belmar, NJ, for several years.

Jack maintained a connection to baseball, playing in the United States Over 30 Baseball League and Men’s Senior Baseball League (MSBL) for 19 years, playing in multiple all-star games.

After retiring from baseball, Jack acquired an addiction to golf and is an active member of the Coral Ridge Country Club in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and the Spring Lake Golf Club in Spring Lake, New Jersey.