1965

Deep within all of us must reside a hankering for easy money, sudden wealth, the BIG payoff. TV game shows, direct-mail sweepstakes, state-run lotteries, and now legalized off-track betting sustain this latent desire. Several years ago a friend of a friend admitted that careers in investment banking come close to being the most prestigious cover for what essentially amounts to playing the horses. Being at the right place for a single incoming telephone call can mean the difference between a treadmill life and sudden riches. At the time I shrugged off the idea as being in the wrong risk league for my own living style but worth keeping in mind. Now is the time to see how and where other classmates have made the reverse choice.

Gary Weltner is a fine example of someone who plays the role of an investment banker properly - or at least according to my a priori image. Gary is a vice president and director of Roosevelt and Cross, Inc., investment bankers within New York City, while living in Little Silver, N.J., with wife Paddy and young daughter. Since his specialty is municipal bonds, it is appropriate that he belong to a variety of clubs to make and continue personal contacts - and so he does; N.Y. Municipal Bond Club, Downtown Athletic Club, Jersey Coast Club, Beacon Hill Country Club, Bankers Club of America, and Ship Ahoy. With golf, skiing, and a little squash added to the fringes, we get a glimpse of the structure surrounding the life of an investment banker.

Soon after our tenth reunion MarshallWallach joined a regional investment banking firm in Denver by the name of Boettcher and Company. Although life in the West is different for an investment banker than it would be commuting into New York, the basic function, as Marshall explains it, is the same - i.e. assisting clients in the structuring and obtaining of long-term capital, both bonds and forms of equity (stock). Arthur Yasuda is part of the debt placement activity doing bond trading with the Bank of California in San Francisco as vice president, investments. The equity side of placements in California is being covered in part by DavidJones and his work with Union Venture Corporation. This subsidiary of Union Bank of Los Angeles makes capital investments in small businesses. Prior to 1974, David was in corporate law practice with a firm in Los Angeles and a firm in New York. He is now active in the Dartmouth Club of Southern California.

Surrounding this central function of investment bankers are related and/or support activities. Dick Bordeau of Sudbury, Mass., acts as a middleman between the investment banker and the customer who actually provides the funds. Dick is an investment advisor with Kidder Peabody and Co., Inc., in Boston. One of his own investment holdings is a vacation home on Lake Winnipesaukee that ties up not only capital but that other scarce resource - time. He is finding time to jog, swim, ski, sail, play tennis, and golf.

Chris Rooney is also part of the scene in his job with The Chicago Company, Investment Bankers. With the title of assistant vice president and research director, he supports the investment effort by managing research into the potentials of various client companies and market segments.

Distantly related to all of this activity is DonBradley who, in league with his Irish setter Charlie, is filling the role of tax attorney with Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro in San Francisco. When not at home helping Barbara manage the three children, he is teaching international taxation in the Golden Gate University graduate tax department. Don has kept up with JackMcLean, who is an antitrust lawyer with Pillsbury, Madison, and Sutro; Derek Knudsen, a San Francisco tax lawyer; Paul Pringle, now in San Francisco; and Pete Baumbusch. The report on Pete is that he is living in Santa Monica while working for Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher in Los Angeles as a tax lawyer. On the side he has become an expert in California election laws and political reform.

This month's international noteworthy is Kighoma Malima, who is now the principal secretary, Ministry of Finance and Planning - in Tanzania! For this position Kighoma started by way of an M.A. in economics at Yale (1966) and a Ph.D. in economics at Princeton (1971) as preliminaries. Then he worked as senior lecturer in economics at the University of Dares Salaam, as the U.N. Development Program official in New York, and as director of the Institute of Finance Management in Dares Salaam.

Before it is too late to be news, I must mention that Harris Saxon has returned to the practice of law with Ely, Guess, and Rudd in Anchorage. Greatland Exploration, Ltd. continues to function without Harris now while he is specializing in natural resources and public land law. Sometimes the week will find him writing title options for the pipeline, at other times hunkering down to eat walrus hide with the Eskimos.

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