Bright and early (6:15am) the AIM students met up with Tim Wojs (AIM ’06), who explained what they would be viewing at Baird’s equity morning meeting. He also conducted a brief tour of Baird’s new and impressive equity trading room. Dr. Krause said, “We appreciate the opportunity to sit in on the morning meeting and view the activities on the trading floor. I believe that watching the various professionals present their research findings helps the students appreciate the importance of strong written and oral communication skills. We’re thankful that Tim was able to arrange for the visit to the morning meeting.”
Following the meeting, the students had an opportunity to interact with Bob Venable and Jon Langenfeld – the Co-Directors of Equity Research at Baird. “The students were treated to an overview of Baird’s equity research process. We are thankful that we were able to meet with Mr. Venable and Mr. Langenfeld. I know that many of our students are interested in working as research analysts at Baird so this session was very useful. We realize they are the best in the business,” commented Dr. Krause.
The AIM students then were able to meet with Baird personnel in the Institutional Equity Sales and Trading area. David Tarantino, Dan Renouard, Rob Haugen and Patrick Savage all addressed the students and talked about the Sales & Trading functions at Baird. Dr. Krause said, “This was an important dialogue for the students because we don’t address much about S&T in the AIM curriculum. I know that this is an area that holds a lot of interest for some of our students and I’m pleased that these gentlemen took time out of their busy morning schedules to interact with our students. I know some students want to learn more about this area of the investment industry.”
Following the busy morning with the equity professionals at Baird, the students next moved upstairs to visit with the fixed income pros. Dan Tranchita, who along with Tim Wojs helped to arrange the Baird field trip, briefly talked with the students. The remainder of the morning was spent with Pat Lawton, the Director of Fixed Income Capital Markets, and two of his newest employees – Billy Flynn and Anne Mongoven (AIM ’10). Their presentation focused on Baird’s fixed income operations - and Billy and Anne took the students through some of the active deals they were working on presently.
Krause said, “I know the AIM students found this to be very interesting because Billy and Anne are recent Marquette graduates. When they talked about the deals they were involved with and what their daily work life was like, you could see the AIM students realize the importance of the concepts they are learning in the classroom. Both presenters emphasized the importance of mastering the curriculum – especially the fixed income material.”
The visit ended at 9:00am and the AIM students were back on campus before most of the other Marquette students were even awake. “It makes for a long day, but the visit to Baird is truly one of the highlights of the semester,” said Krause. “We are very fortunate to have the opportunity to tour their facilities – and we’d like to thank them for allowing us to be their guests for the morning. We have established a special relationship that we hope to continue for many years to come. We've placed a lot of our students with Baird and I'd like for this trend to continue. We're really blessed to have many strong investment firms in Milwaukee.”
