What were the paths that took you from Trinity to where you are now?
My father was a designer and manufacturer of womens coats. I thought of going in to that business, but it was a dying industry. After I came to Trinity, I thought that the career that I wanted to go into was investment banking. So I applied to several business schools, and got into Northwestern and the University of Virginia. I put a lot of stock in the fact that people out there, to use an economics term, “invisible hands”- helped me along. For example, Professor Scheuch of the Economics department was always there guiding me. I went to Northwestern where I earned my masters in management, and then went to work for a public accounting firm.

The firm offered a unique position as an auditor, but also a chance to gain experience as a business consultant. They said they would develop me as a well-rounded businessperson. Day one, I was sent to work on the Sears account. There were a tremendous number of special projects being assigned. It was in this way that I got to know the comptroller and the CFO of Sears very well. Financial services seemed liked a natural route for me.

Sears had some openings because of company restructuring, and I joined them in 1981. They were looking at different ways of approaching customers. I worked on the team that did the analysis of structuring the Dean Witter acquisition, and did other work to set up this new Sears entity. For example, I helped create the funding structure of the first Discover card. There I met Philip Purcell, who was the architect of their entry to financial services, who later became the head of Dean Witter, and asked me to come over as treasurer. So I did that for a couple of years, and in 1992, Sears spun Dean Witter off. In 1994 I went into a strategic job, called Chief Strategic and Administrative Officer. Not long after, I helped put the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter merger together, and after that kind of got my pick of where to go next. Later on, I moved into the asset management business. So that’s the long answer to the simple question to “how’d you get here?” Normally, if you’re going to wind up running an asset management business you probably managed or sold investments at some point in time.

What would you say that helped you out working at these companies that you learned at Trinity?
The interesting thing about Trinity is that there were people who were guiding me, who were interested in me, and helped me stay focused. And when I wasn’t sure what the next step would be, they always knew where it was supposed to be, and would help me find my way there without telling me that this was my next step. Their guiding hands provided those midcourse corrections that can help you form a decision, without telling you what to do. What that did along the way was, it taught me to learn. That’s the one thing that professors always said at Trinity- we are not teaching you things for the sake of knowledge, we are helping you learn how to learn. To me that is the most important thing that Trinity taught me. Because, whenever you get hit with a situation, the Trinity education is there all the time. It teaches you how you attack a problem or an issue, and come up with a solution.

You said that Trinity was vitally important to forming relation ships with professors and developing ways of thinking- when you went out into the work field, did you find it possible to form the same kind of relationships?
Yes, that’s key. Every step along the way, I can point to someone I worked with that was senior to me that took an interest in me. The funny thing about a mentor is that there are a lot of people out there who want to help, but they won’t line up and tap you on their shoulder offering help. You have to go and seek them out. That’s something that Trinity taught me. It’s OK to go to that person who’s a senior vice-president or the managing director and say, “hey, I could use some guidance and some help.” First, try doing it informally.

How exactly would you do that?
Typically, you just network through the day. You get involved in teams, and there’s someone leading the team. In today’s environment, it is so much easier than it used to be. Today you can send someone an e-mail. There’s no barrier. That’s the way people make contact with me. More times than not, people will get a pretty good response.

What is a typical day like for you, if there is such a thing?
I get up at 5:00A.M. The commute is about an hour. I work out from about 6:00 to 7:00A.M, show up at my post at 7:30, get through the e-mails, voicemails, and catch up on the day. Typically, the days are pretty jam-packed. People are basically seeking me out all day long, because things are happening and they need decisions. They include me in the thought processes and in working on issues in development. It’s really interesting.

On a typical day, I’ll talk to some portfolio manager about what’s going on in the marketplace, what’s going on in their mutual fund, or we’ll talk to the sales folks about sales campaigns. This is also a highly regulated industry, so there will be contact with the SEC or lawyers. Then of course there’s the market. You never know what’s going to happen on any given day, and there’s tremendous volatility. There’s immense variety, but that’s a lot of fun.

If you could describe one experience that keeps you happy with where you are, what would it be?
The biggest experiences were the big deals. They happen only so often. Working on the merger of Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter was a great deal. It was absolutely ground breaking, and at that time, the largest transaction of its kind. We were in the news for weeks and weeks. You’re sitting in the press conference, and the guy that you’ve worked with for nearly twenty years is up there, and he’s the chairman of this large company, and you’ve helped him build something for a long time. That’s an unbelievable thing and kind of keeps you going.

What would you say is the best way to stay current in your field?
So much has changed. A few years ago, I was reading the Wall Street Journal everyday, and the various academic and business literature, but that’s all changed. The way I keep up now is basically through the laptop, and looking at the Internet. I’ll do media and topical searches, and get kept up to date on things going on in Washington and in different industries. Sitting with the Journal and getting my fingers dirty with the ink and a cup of coffee is like a vacation.

Have you seen any future changes happening that students should know about or expect?
One of the big things that has happened over the past five-years with the advent of the Internet is the whole new industry of direct investing, rather than broker-directed investing. The information that’s available to the individual from CNN and various web sites has made it almost transparent. In the old days, you could almost never do anything except by calling a broker on the telephone. Now you can sit in the bathtub with your laptop and execute the actual transactions. That’s having an unbelievable impact on all of business, and reshaping relations.

Over the next five or ten years, there’s going to be an absolute shift in the way business is being done. There’s going to be a lot more advice provided over the Internet, and we’re going to be much more comfortable doing financial transactions over the Internet. The broker-directed business will still be there, but what’s going to change is that transaction costs will be going to zero. People are going to be paying in very different ways for talent in investment management.

Going into the business world, students need to look at the business they’re getting into. Is this a new-economy company or an old-economy company? The new-economy company is familiar with technology and the Internet. The old-economy companies are typically service companies or manufacturing companies and develop physical goods for the consumer. It’s OK to associate yourself with an old-economy one, but that company better understand the new economy, and the new-economy environment. People are calling that “bricks and clicks”. If they’re not, those folks who have figured it out will leave them behind fairly quickly.

If you had a typical student at Trinity coming into the business, what would be the three strongest qualifications that you would look for?
Let’s say you get beyond the initial screens such as grades and scores, and assume you’re looking at above average people. What’s happens then, is you look at personality, desire, motivation, and the person’s skills combined in one bucket. Does that person have communication skills, along with motivation and desire? You try to sense out personality types as well.

In the Internet business, you have a culture of dressing down, for example. What are some of the corporate cultural norms that exist in your industry?
In the finance world, it’s very conservative, and you have button-down people. Therefore, you present yourself the same way you learned to present yourself at a faculty event, surrounded by venerable professors. A conservative company will look for that kind of conservative behavior, with motivation, if not aggression, underneath. But in fact, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter just went business casual recently. So things have turned a little topsy-turvy.

Any words of advice for someone graduating from Trinity or looking ahead?
Things are fairly easy right now. It’s a great economy, lots of things are happening that are great. Youth is valued and knowledge of technology is highly valued. Take advantage of that knowledge and move ahead, and grab on to what’s out there. Things won’t always be this good. We have these things called economic cycles. There will be a cycle, so move ahead in your careers while people still want you, and while you are in short supply.