Kenneth Kaszak

Everybody reading this has taken at least one aptitude test in their lifetime. I’ve taken a few of them. The last, and most interesting, was given to me by a prospective employer a few years after graduating from college.

I had developed an interest in the investment business and obtained the first two licenses that would allow me to market investment products. But I had zero clients. I applied to a company that marketed both investment and insurance products. The company paid a salary for two years while giving new brokers a chance to build a business. Since I already had my licenses I told them they wouldn’t have to wait until I passed the tests and wouldn’t face the chance of me not passing. They brought me in for an interview and gave me an aptitude test to determine if I had the personal characteristics to establish myself in the industry.

When I called the company to learn the results of that test, I was informed that I had the second lowest score of anybody who ever took the test—and not just in the Pittsburgh office but in the entire country.  The test administrator suggested that I find another occupation.

Twenty five years later, the name of that company has been eliminated, the end result of an acquisition by a larger company.  And I’m still in the investment business.  Not only am I still in the business but I have a growing practice with a cool website and many insightful and educational articles and essays to my credit.  My articles are written for people who may have aptitude, but not for the relevant and valid issues that are investment-related.

I have clients in a wide range of professions.  Plumbers, doctors, construction workers, teachers, truck drivers, attorneys, salesmen, accountants, pilots, police officers, business owners, computer programmers, real estate brokers, a judge, a fireman, etc.  The list of professions my retired clients came from is just as long. 

While my clients do—or did—their occupations well, I have limited or no aptitude for the jobs listed above. But it is not vital that I know how to write computer code, drive a split shift or repair an abdominal aneurysm. It is, on the contrary, vital that my clients have some understanding of the mechanics of the investment markets, the fees associated with their accounts and why I do what I do with their investments. To that extent, I have excellent aptitude for my chosen profession. I also have the unique skill of putting my clients on the learning curve and helping them to advance. Your money is your money. It is important you understand how the “money industry” works for the benefit and safety of yourself and your family members coming down the pipeline after you. Get on the curve and keep advancing.

One of the best stories I ever heard about aptitude concerns clients of mine. These clients own a welding and steel fabrication company. The sons are all trained welders. One of the sons, Raymond, decided he wanted to become an underwater welder. This required attending and graduating from a school in New Jersey that taught the unique craft.

According to Raymond’s own mother, he was less than a stellar student while in high school.  She informed me she used to have to sit with him at the dining room table and go over his school work on a regular basis in order to move him onto the next grade.  She asked him how he was going to graduate from this specialty school.  He informed her that he would find a fellow student who was good at school work but didn’t have strong welding skills.  Raymond would teach him everything about welding while that student would help him with the book work.

On the night before he was to leave for school, Raymond decided to go out with his friends for a small going away party. His mother was worried that he would have an accident with his truck and would be left without a vehicle to drive to Jersey. Raymond did what most sons—including myself—would have done. He told his mother not to worry; that he would be careful and would be home early.

Of course, there was an accident and his truck was damaged. Underwater welding school was starting and he needed to get on the road. But he had no truck.

Problem solved.  Raymond pulled his old motorcycle out of the shed, started it up and threw on a backpack containing some clothes and essentials.  He took the Pennsylvania Turnpike to New Jersey.  What makes this story even cooler:  it was wintertime.

Raymond did find a bookish student who needed help with the welding. They formed a friendship and both did graduate. Raymond moved to Louisiana and worked as an underwater welder before starting his own business. Today, he designs and installs ornamental iron railings around houses in the New Orleans area. He is now a client of mine and is slowly advancing on the investment learning curve.

And I have yet to do any welding…underwater or above water…but if I decide to do so, I know a good teacher.

My middle name is “Persistence.” But not officially.  The name listed on my birth certificate is “Joseph.”  Persistence is my self-proclaimed, self-acquired middle name.  But it’s been with me so long that it has become my defacto middle name.

Many people consider themselves persistent.  But I have one unique claim to the word:  I can remember the exact moment and the exact location when I acquired it as my second name.

The back story:  I had been an above average athlete in junior high school.  In my sophomore year, I ruptured a disk in my back.  It took a long time to be properly diagnosed.  Tenth grade football players tend not to have such a severe injury.  I left school early in my junior year for a spinal fusion and months of home rehabilitation.

A teacher from the school came to my parents’ home to tutor me.  But I was exposed to a different type of education.  My days were spent reading some of the greatest novels ever written (Hemingway and Steinbeck were favorites) and my nights were spent watching classic black & white movies on the small TV set my parents put in my room. 

I developed an interest in motion pictures, television and theater arts.  When I returned to school for my senior year, my last two classes of the day were A.P. English and Theater Arts.  I have zero recall what my other classes were.  I do know that I “cut” those classes on a regular basis but was always sure to return to the school for the last two periods.

In February of my senior year, a show about Harry S. Truman was being produced at WQED. The producer was David Susskind, who had a talk show on PBS. The star was Ed Flanders, best known for playing Dr. Donald Westphal on the seminal TV show St. Elsewhere. I decided to cut school one day and go to the station to see exactly how a TV show is produced.

The day I decided to go was one of those extremely cold, blustery days where the snow blows sideways.  I slipped out of school and walked to the bus stop.  When I got downtown I had to ask somebody which bus to take to Oakland.

The bus driver told me where to get off and pointed out the studio to me.  I walked up the steps and into the building.  When I told the receptionist that I wanted to watch the production of Plain Speaking, she informed me that it was a “closed set” and no visitors were allowed.  I politely thanked her and left the building.

And then it happened.  I was standing outside on Fifth Avenue.  The cold wind was smacking me in the face.  The sideways snow made my eyes squint.  I gave no thought to going back to school.  This was an important moment in my life.  I had to get into that station and that studio. 

I walked to the back of the building.  There was a door with a large lock, the kind of lock that required an ID card.  I stood there for a few moments.  The door was pushed open and three men hurried out.  I recognized David Susskind as one of them.  Before the door closed I caught it with my hand.  I walked into the back of the studio, nervous and excited.  I was there for a few minutes before somebody who was supposed to be there approached me.

“Hey. What are you doing here?”
I tried to act like I belonged. I pointed in the direction where I thought the University of Pittsburgh was. And then I lied to him.

“I came over from the school. I heard you might have some jobs here.” “Oh, yeah?” he said. “Wait right here.”

He disappeared for a few moments and returned with another fellow. This fellow was wearing a necktie. He was in charge. He asked me why I was in their station. I pointed in a different direction this time, maybe toward CMU.

“I’m here for the job,” I repeated.
The necktie guy took a moment to size me up and consider my reply. And then he spoke.
“You’re not supposed to be here until Monday.”

* * *

I did return on Monday and spent a month working at QED while in high school. The school gave me a work-study release in order to do so. The job I had wasn’t important but I didn’t care. I was in show business…sort of. I learned how to read bus schedules, earned my first two paychecks and was given a cool fringe benefit: an elevator ride and conversation with Mr. Rogers.

Ambition is an interesting and puzzling concept, even more so when looking at it in the rearview mirror of your life. When I realized my ambition of being a professional athlete wasn’t going to be met—as it goes unmet for most of us—I developed another ambition. I wanted to be a TV cameraman working in the field.

I can still remember my vision:  I would leave the station with the top ranked field reporter in the station van early in the morning.  People would wave to us or let us into traffic because we were in the Channel 2 or 4 or 11 van with the station letters on the sides.

We would “field produce” the stories given to us by the assignment editor. My creative camera angles and lighting skills would capture the essence of each story; it didn’t matter if it was a fire or a car accident or a human interest story such as a woman skydiving on her 100th birthday, we would get the story and do it justice.

I didn’t give one thought to being the news anchor reading the stories on air. No interest in that. I wanted to be the guy in the van rushing my tape back to the station at the end of the day so I could edit it and have it ready for the six o’clock news.

When the stories aired, I would be sitting in a downtown bar, a few seats away from an attractive secretary who came for happy hour pricing. When I would reveal to her that I was the one responsible for that story, she would slide down and sit next to me. If I had to wait for the same stories to air on the 11 o’clock news for an attractive woman to stroll into the bar, so be it.

But that ambition just kind of came and went. As I get older, and time becomes more valuable to me, I find watching the local news to be a waste of time. While in college my only ambition was to graduate. That ambition was born from the 1.6 QPA I achieved my first semester at Duquesne University. When I did what was needed to be done and I realized I would graduate, my ambition was to get a job at a company that had Blue Cross/Blue Shield and a good company softball team where I could play third base.

When that job—or any job—didn’t come, a healthy dose of unemployment gave me much greater ambition. If nobody was going to give me a job, I would choose a venture that I had interest and passion in and try to develop a source of revenue for myself. The construction and real estate development industries were of interest to me. At one time, the term “real estate developer” was the equivalent of “major league ballplayer” to me.

My newfound ambition got me a job with a successful real estate developer. But once I was inside the business and was dealing with the unique cast of characters who populate it, I realized that how I thought the business operated wasn’t accurate. The romantic notion of building “space” for people to raise their families in or to spend their productive and creative work time at wasn’t going to be realized. One of the interesting characters I met in the business once told me that the real estate business should be called the “fake estate” business because everybody was trying to fake each other out (owners overstating value to lenders, buyers and tenants; lenders understating value to borrowers, sellers overstating value to buyers, etc.)

My career in the real estate business didn’t last long but resulted in two things: some entertaining stories and the unwavering, nonstop, unimpeded desire to find value in things…investments, ideas, people, whatever. To that extent, I acquired (or already had) the mentality of an investigative reporter and the soul of “Colombo” (Google that one if you don’t catch the reference.)

My chosen career (or careers) gives me the sense of creation, achievement and accomplishment on a regular basis. There is a “return” on using objectivity and research skills to uncover value and having the ability to convey it to others. I apply these traits to various ventures I have passion for on a regular basis. That ambition—to find value—has never wavered or changed.