The 'Indiana Jones of Finance'

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Jim Rogers, the "Indiana Jones of Finance," is known throughout Wall Street for his independent, contrarian investing style and his association with George Soros and the Quantum Fund.

Though he has since retired, he continues to be a presence with his world travels and bold economic commentary. His work with commodities, in particular, has helped to influence the way the average investor looks at personal finance today.

Rogers was born in 1942. As a child in Alabama, Rogers wasted no time getting into the business world. At the age of five, he was already making money collecting bottles and selling peanuts to fans at baseball games.

Rogers received a bachelor's degree from Yale and Oxford. Upon graduation, he served in the U.S. military for a few years before he headed to Wall Street to work for Arnhold & S. Bliechroder, where he was a research analyst for a hedge fund managed by George Soros.

In 1970 the two men joined to establish what would become the Quantum Fund. With Soros as the trader and Rogers as the analyst, the fund grew from $12 million to more than $250 million.

Soros attributed a considerable amount of Quantum's success to Rogers' hard work. In his book, Soros on Soros, the investor said Rogers handled the work of six men.

Unfortunately, as the fund grew, so did the stress of managing it. While Soros saw a desperate need to add analysts, Rogers found it difficult to work with outsiders. In 1979, at the age of 37, Rogers decided that he had earned enough and "retired" from the industry.