Mike Breard graduated from Rice University in 1963 and got an MBA from Stanford in 1965. His first job was with Standard & Poor's in New York. He later worked with Goodbody and Walston in NYC before moving back to Dallas. He worked for several brokerage houses in Dallas, including Eppler, Guerin & Turner and Schneider, Bernet & Hickman, as an energy analyst and institutional salesman before joining Hodges Capital in 1997.