I was fortunate as an economics major to write my senior thesis under the supervision of Professor James Tobin. I frankly had no idea what I would do after Yale. My thesis dealt with the variable annuity and whether it should be classified as an insurance product, regulated federally by state insurance agencies or federally by the SEC as an investment product. The advice Professor Tobin shared led me to lean toward the insurance supervision a conclusion which I reversed after joining a mutual fund group led by a man I had met at Lehman Brothers while I was in a training there. Despite my rather mediocre grades at Yale, I was hired, I think more due to my Yale association than academic excellence.
In light of my early career change, my free time scrambling around the cliffs of Sleeping Giant State Park furthered my thoughts of a career in the outdoors beyond my earlier hiking experiences near our summer home in Vermont. To say that this was partly responsible for my unusual career after finance would be a stretch. I think perhaps the greatest influence at Yale was the philosophy courses which were part of my enrollment in Directed Studies. I still grapple with the deceptively simple advice given by Socrates: “Know thyself.”
I will be touring the Alps at the time of the class reunion, and I will certainly reflect on Yale’s impact on my life. I am no longer able to climb, but take great pleasure in visiting old friends and Alpine villages and am forever grateful to have led a life which has truly been like a dream.