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KIRK KAZANJIAN<br />
called me in and said if I gave up my spot on Fannie Mae, he could<br />
help me move up faster at the firm. I told him I was happy with the<br />
way my career was progressing. I had been selected to manage $100<br />
million for the state of Ohio teachers’ retirement system. That account<br />
led to another one worth $100 million from the Virginia retirement<br />
system. I had the second-highest billings at Stein Roe and knew Stein<br />
couldn’t get rid of me. However, I admit I wasn’t so happy at the firm<br />
in those early years when he was all over me. On the other hand, I<br />
felt a warm spot toward Stein because he was smart and taught me<br />
a lot. I couldn’t blame him for being mad.”<br />
In 1972, the GOP came back to Papp and asked him to direct Nixon’s<br />
reelection campaign for the state of Illinois. “I said, ‘No, I can’t<br />
do that because I like investing.’ That’s what I want to do,” he reflects.<br />
“The politics were fun, and I was an idealist, particularly when I was<br />
younger. If you’re not a liberal when you’re 20, you have no heart.<br />
If you’re not a conservative when you’re 40, you have no head. So I<br />
was more idealistic then. I enjoyed it and had a good time. But I didn’t<br />
want to make a career out of it. It was just a hobby.” Nixon won<br />
without Papp’s help.<br />
Because of his involvement with Fannie Mae and his knowledge<br />
of the inner workings of government, Papp was put on the fivemember<br />
investment policy <strong>com</strong>mittee at Stein Roe. This group was<br />
charged with setting out the firm’s investment strategy and philosophy<br />
during the late 1960s. About that time, Larry Hickey became the firm’s<br />
new managing partner. “Larry wanted to be totally in charge,” Papp<br />
alleges. “You either did everything he wanted, or he didn’t trust you.<br />
I was not one of his fair-haired boys, but I wasn’t the enemy either.<br />
He would tolerate my being a little independent because I had a lot<br />
of accounts.”<br />
THE EARLY YEARS AT STEIN ROE<br />
During Papp’s years at Stein Roe, the firm didn’t play the same<br />
earnings-momentum game it ventured into in the 1980s. “Momentum<br />
was not in the ballpark,” Papp says. “Actually, it was the exact opposite.<br />
If a stock went down, they liked it better. They were very researchoriented.”<br />
In fact, a third of the firm was devoted to research, which<br />
Papp always considered to be ironic since Stein and Farnham made<br />
all of the real decisions anyway. Years after he left, Papp had lunch<br />
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