Mike Harper

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1945. The year I was born. Here are some highlights.

 -Franklin Roosevelt sworn in for unprecedented fourth term

-Only 5000 TV sets were in American homes. With 5 inch black and white screens

-US defeats Japan at Iwo Jima. Famous statue of marines raising the US flag erected

Japan surrenders months later

-Frozen orange juice became available in the US

-27.8 million telephones in the US. One for every 5 people

-Germany surrenders. Victory in Europe achieved

-Frank Sinatra, Steve Martin, Bob Marley, and Stephen Stills were born

-Best Film---Lost Weekend with Best Actor Ray Milland

-Dow Jones Average---High 196

-Cost of a new car---$6,350, new home---$10,131, median household income $5,462

-Cost of a gallon of gas---$.30

-First general purpose computer (ENIAC) covers 1800 feet of floor space

 Early Life

Written by Mike Harper

Born at Evanston Hospital

My dad, H. Mitchell Harper Jr, was in the Navy on a destroyer in the Pacific Ocean attacking Japanese held islands when I was born. I lived in Chicago with my mom and grandfather Coale (mom’s dad) until my dad returned from the navy. I remember getting the first TV on the block when I was around 4-5 years old. We had a great dane for a dog. However, my mom was afraid the dog might bite us so she gave it away to a family who lived on a farm.

See Education for part of early life.

We moved to Northfield, Illinois summer of 1950. Northfield had a population of around 2000 people and had a lot of vacant land and a few farms. In fact, there was a small farm across the street with a few cows. Our house was located at 2300 Clover Lane. (pictured below). The lane had around 10 houses with lots of kids. We had almost an acre of land with a big front yard. I shared a large bedroom with Stephen. My dad built a two story playhouse and we could climb from there to the garage roof. This “fort” was a great battle ground for cap gun fights and squirt guns. My dad also finished off the basement with a ceiling, wood walls and a tile floor. He bought a ping pong table and a bowling machine which were fun. We also had a large Lionel train set down there which got a lot of use. Some parts of the basement were spooky. There were rooms with doors to the laundry room and my dad’s workshop. At the back end of the laundry room was a dark dingy unlit room with a water pump. The pump looked like a small robot to us…spooky. Once in a while Steve would run up the stairs and turn off the lights in the basement. This made it very scary for me.

Beside our house was a drainage ditch that had this yucky slimy substance which looked like raw sewage. We used to get this stuff on sticks and fling it at each other. Many times, Steve and I would grab David and threaten to throw him in the ditch. He screamed a lot during this process. After we let him go, he would run into my room and knock down all my toy soldiers which then started another fight. We picked on poor David a lot. Steve and I would run into our room and close the door. David would then pound on the door with wooden blocks until we let him in. Poor David.

Our front yard was large enough for baseball, football and kick the can games. We had a miniature orange tractor for not only cutting the grass (with three separate cutters) but also dragging wagons and carpets for friends to play on. It was also great in the snow on the lane for dragging sleds.;

These years in the early 50’s were the golden years for young kids. They were years of riding bicycles everywhere even at night, buying and shooting off illegal fireworks, cap guns, reading 100s of comic books, eating massive amounts of candy (having cavities drilled on almost all your teeth), mud and potato shooting guns, throwing snow balls at cars while hiding behind bushes, setting off smoke bombs in various public places, using pea shooters in movie theaters to hit other patrons, making your own fire crackers on your desk at home by cutting off match heads (riding your bike to the general store and buying many books of matches) and wrap them up with cardboard and tape and lighting a Jetex fuse. You could also stick the fuse into a lit cigarette and use as a time bomb to go off many minutes after. I also remember buying stink bombs. One time I put in one of Steve’s friend’s back pack. He was so mad he road his bike home in the night rather than spending the night.
We had three dogs on Clover Lane. Two golden retrievers (Butterscotch and Dixie). These dogs got kind of fat since my mom fed them cooked food. We all loved these two dogs. We also had a Welsh Korgie named Sunny Boy. My mom got him from another family when he was a few years old but I don’t know why. We lost a golden retriever puppy to the flu bug one year…very sad. We also lost another dog, ..Gus-mixed breed. He went mad and had to be hunted down by the police and shot. Very sad. I used to take the two golden retrievers in the neighboring huge vacant fields to hunt for pheasants. I didn’t use a gun, just gourds for throwing at them…never did see them on those trips but they were there. We had a variety of other pets too: ant farms, turtles, cats, a mynah bird (Ralph--he talked), small alligator (too scary…gave him back to the store because he freaked me out after two days)!  And chamelion lizards (we fed them captured flies). But the biggest highlight for me was tropical fish. When I was in 6th grade or so, I visited a friend on our lane and discovered tropical fish. That Christmas, I asked for and got a 10 gallon aquarium. My mom said I spent hours in front of that tank every day. Eventually, the one tank turned into two then three. I got involved with salt water fish in 7th or 8th grade. This was a huge step. I had a seahorse that had babies one morning and I bred a pair of tropical fish Bettas in another tank.

I remember reading a lot of science fiction books and I was a firm believer in UFOs. I would lie on a lounge chair in our back yard at night in the summer and watch hundreds of shooting stars. The sky was so clear in those days with no ambient light in Northfield. I played at lot of softball and I was a pretty good batter. The baseball game we played, it seemed like very day, was called “Move Up”. You got to play every position and when someone was out, you moved up to the next position. Summers were fun going to Clarkson’s Day Camp.. Lots of games and friends. I went away for 6 weeks or so to a camp in north Wisconsin called “I Cog o Wan”. I went there for two years when I was around 10 and 11. The camp owner asked me if I wanted to be a director the following summer but I declined. Lots of baseball, canoeing trips, teather ball, saucer riding (pre-water skiing). capture the flag and more group games in the woods. Steve went too and David later. One of my favorite activities at camp was playing Mumblety-peg. This was a game using the punch part of a small knife. You would flip the knife off your fingers, hands, arms, shoulder, face and head. You would continue the progress of trying to stick it in the ground until you missed, then it would be the other person’s turn. After awhile, I could almost complete the entire round without missing.

During those Clover Lane years, I was also a Cub Scout and Boy Scout. I attained the rank of “second class” in Scouts. My mom was a “Den Mother” in Cub Scouts. She held meetings once a week in our basement. She organized all kinds of projects for us. One of the first projects was making our own stools. We painted a lion head on the seat representing our cub pack.

When we lived at 429 Sheridan Road in Winnetka. Illinois and my Junior Year of High School, I told dad about an original 1930 red Chrysler convertible that was for sale by a guy in my advisor room’s father. My Dad liked old cars and we went to see it Thanksgiving morning. Dad liked the car and he bought it for around $700. I got to drive it later that day to Grandfather Coale’s (my moms dad) house in Winnetka for Thanksgiving dinner. Steve and David rode with me. A wild ride since the brakes didnt stop the car very well and we made some fast corner turns. I drove that car around town frequently. The car also had a rumble seat (pull down the trunk handle and there was a seat for two people). Steve and I rode around a lot in this car to friends’ houses. Many times we had machine gun water pistols and we could squirt people. I added a wolf whistle to the car’s engine. These whistles were somewhat illegal cause you could make it sound like a police car or fire engine. The whistle on the engine was connected to the underside of the dashboard by a wire. You could pull on the wire to make all kinds of sounds. Like whistles at girls and whoop noises. We used this whistle frequently at people and no one ever knew how it happened….only a red antique car driving by. We even took it in a high school caravan to a football game some 20 miles away. The car conked out a few times and we started it by pushing it and letting out the clutch to turn the engine over.

During those high school and college years, we played a lot of bridge, charades, went to go kart tracks, drag races, Riverview Amusement Park in Chicago, and Drive in Movie Theaters. Riverview was famous for taking a girl friend back in the day. It was really inexpensive. For example, you could ride on the famous “Bobs” roller coaster for 5 cents. They had many scary roller coasters, side shows with unusual people, games of chance (most were rigged), the parachute drop (120 feet high (it took me many years to go on that ride), flying cars, the Rotor (spun so fast you stuck to the wall when the floor dropped (careful not to barf because it came back and stuck to you) and a tunnel of love. They also had a “black” person in a cage filled half way with water. It was called “The African Dip” from something more racial name before that. You could throw a hardball and try to hit a plate that would dunk the person. The “black” person in the cage would yell all kinds of insults to go and your girlfriend to get you to buy more balls to throw and really piss you off.

The time at 429 Sheridan was some of the greatest years of my life. Having our own beach, pool, deck overlooking Lake Michigan and a screen porch beach house were a person’s dreams. The list of great things living there are endless but I will highlight a few of them. We had two Sunfish sailboats ( around 12 feet long) that were fun learning how to sail. We had a, eight foot, C class, hydroplane boat that went around 45 mph and was great jumping the wakes of other boats. Since we could have tipped over, we wore an orange Bell Helmet that could stop a propeller blade. What would happen to the rest of our body, who knows? We also had a “dead mans” throttle on the hydroplane in case we tipped over. By letting go of the throttle, the engine stopped. We had a 5 gallon gas tank right behind us and in front of the motor. We knelt on cushions to protect out knees from smashing against the bottom of the boat. In addition, we had a few water skiing boats over the years. I learned to slalom ski one summer from my Uncle Kenny up at his parents summer house in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. When I got home from Lake Geneva, I went out and bought the same Joe Cash slalom ski that we all used for many years. One summer, I bought a pair of shoe skis that were a few inches longer than my feet. I never learned how to start off in deep water with these. So, I started on a water saucer going around 15 mph and I yelled “hit it” to the boat driver. The driver was either my brother Steve or my best friend John Baylor. I was then able to stand up on the shoe skis. These shoe skis made me very nervous. I continually looked at the tips to make sure I kept them raised so as not to go face first into the water with a slam. That same summer, I figured if I could get up off a saucer with the shoe skis, maybe I could get up with no skis! I tried the saucer at around 20 or so mph and yelled “ hit It”. I went around 30 feet or so and fell head first at around 25-30 mph. That was the last time I tried barefoot! Having a pool was a blast. With several friends, we played “ Beep” it seems almost every day before or after hitting the beach. This game is equivalent to the present day Marco Polo. Lake Michigan was best for water skiing when it was calm. It was only calm perhaps three or so days a week and better in the morning. The winds shifted like a clock every day. We would check the weather reports for the wind direction and wind speed for the coming days. It was best for sailing if the wind was 15 mph or better, typically in the afternoon. Lake Michigan, being up North, would be subject to 20 below zero in the winter to 90+ degrees in the summer. We started sailing in early May when the water would be around 45 degrees. Just try not to have the sailboat tip over! In June, we started some water skiing but the water temperature averaged a cold 58 degrees. In late August, we finally got up to the low 70’s…Yay! Another highlight of having your own beach with a screen porch was beach parties. Many friends would come over and enjoy a place with no parent supervision!!! All the parties were BYO. We also had a record player to play all kinds of music to talk, sing and get blasted. At the end of each summer before going back to school, we had an East vs West beer drinking “blow out” party on the beach. The event would start around 7-8 pm and end around 11 pm. We had a blackboard to record the number of beers for each individual and team. If you went to school west of the Mississippi, you were on the West Team and East of the Mississippi, the East team. If you threw up, all of your beers were eliminated. We had chugging contests and periodic meetings by the Team leader to get his team to win. This event originated after my sophomore year of college by me and an old high school girlfriend. During the next summer, I decided along with that same friend, why not get a trophy for the event and have which Team won and the name of the biggest drinker monogrammed on the trophy. This event was continued for many years.

Education

Kindergarden

When I was in nursery school we lived in a house on Broadmeadow in Winnetka. I went to Crow Island School. 

Grammar School

Before I entered first grade, we moved to Northfield, Ill. I went to Sunset Ridge School in Northfield. I got in trouble a lot at Sunset Ridge. My teachers made me write on the blackboards a hundred times after school “ I will not run in the halls”. At other times, during recess, I had to write on paper the same types of things. I remember during music class if you were talking to a friend, the teacher may throw an eraser at you. These were the years a teacher could grab you by the ear and throw you into the coat closet if you were acting up. I remember one time I was in the hallway by one of the classrooms making faces in the window at my friends in the class. Little did I know that the teacher was not in the classroom. I felt a tug on my collar and the teacher said something nasty that I dont quite recall and threw me down the stairs.

High School

When I was in second semester Sophomore year, we moved to Winnetka, Illinois. I started at New Trier High School in Winnetka and graduated June 1963. Nothing much to say about going to High School. However, New Trier was known as one of the top public high schools in the country back then and for many years after. The school had kids from Winnetka, Northfield, Glencoe, Kenilworth and Wilmette. These towns were located around 20 miles north of Chicago and known as part of the “North Shore”…many very affluent neighborhoods. There were around 1500 kids in my graduating class.

College

After graduating from New Trier, I went to the University of Arizona in Tucson. I had never visited the campus before entering my freshman year. In fact, I had never been east of the Mississippi !!! “Go West young man” beckoned! I went through rush and joined the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. Met some very good friends in my pledge class, a few I have seen many years after graduating. I didn’t make my grades first or second semester to be eligible for being an active in the fraternity. After taking a semester off after Sophomore year (bad grades-D average), I worked and lived at home. I went back to U of A second semester and continued there through graduation in June 1968. After I came back to U Of A after my semester off, I lived in a dorm for two semesters. After this, I rented an apartment with a dorm friend. My final year, I rented a small one bedroom house that shared a small pool with 6 other units. That final year, Nita got into the U of A after spending a year at Stevens College (girls school) in Columbia, Missouri. Note, that when I got back into U of A, I had to get a C overall average to graduate. Sounds easy, but, remember, I had a D average for the first two years!!! I was able to get a B+ average my last two years and finally graduated in June 1968. Whew ! I forgot to mention, that I went to summer school at Kendall college in Evanston, Illinois. I took Humanities with a good friend at U of A and a future groomsman. We both got an F in Humanities at U of A so we were able to replace it with a C. I majored in Business at U of A.

Graduate School

While I worked at the Northern Trust Company, I got accepted at Northwestern business school. I went there from Sept 1971 to June 1975 and graduated with a Masters in Management with a triple major---Finance, Accounting and Marketing. Some of my beginning courses were waived since I got good grades in those at U of A. We had to take 21 courses to graduate. I went all year long, including summer, taking 1-2 courses a quarter. These courses were all at night at the downtown campus. Several of my friends also went there so it made it more enjoyable walking to the campus, studying and sharing a ride back home to the suburbs. Northern Trust paid the entire tuition...nice!

Professional Certifications, I received two as part of my career in investment.

Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). this was a three year program with around 120 hours each year of reading a lot of books. There was an exam in June and had to get over a certain score to pass. I passed the first two and failed the third one. After a year of re-studying I passed. I earned this CFA in 1983 while working at Bankers Life in Chicago. I was VP in charge of the Investment Dept at the time.

Chartered Market Technician (CMT) this was a three year program with the final year being an approved topic for a paper by a CMT official and an approval of the final paper by a CMT official. The paper took many months generating a lot of computer research. It then took the CMT official many months to read and approve it. I worked on the CMT while I was a SVP in investments at Chase Asset Management. I required all portfolio managers in my group to take at least the first exam. Only one other person in my group completed the entire program. After passing the CMT in 1999, there were only around a couple of dozen in the country that had both a CMT and CFA !

Military Career

When I took my semester off from U of A, I lost my 2S deferment from the Draft. The 2S was given to any full time student. I was called for the Draft physical in November of 1965. The number of soldiers in Viet Nam at that time was several hundred thousand and they still needed more !. Luckily for me, I had just gotten out of the hospital two weeks before for a large hernia repair. While at the draft physical, I could not bend and I could not carry a 50 pound back pack. That following January, I was back at the U of A with a 2S deferment.  Whew!

Marriage

I first met my wife ,Nita, in the summer after my senior year at New Trier. Nita had just completed her freshman year. We met on the third floor of the 429 Sheridan House where my friend and future groomsman, Keith Bagge, and I were playing pool listening to some great music for that era. As I recall, Steve and a friend, Bob Gearheart, brought Anita and another girl up to the billiard room. At that time I was introduced to Nita. Our first date, happened shortly thereafter when I took her to Riverview Amusement Park in Chicago. We may have had one more date later that summer before I went to the University of Arizona. When I came back home at Christmas vacation, I took Nita on another date. The summer after my freshman year, I took Nita on many dates. I also invited her along with 5 other girls to the infamous Beautillion. The Beautillion was held each summer after freshman year. Around 75 guys got to invite 5 girls each to the party. The guys were dressed in a red sport jacket and madras shorts. The guys formed a reception line and each girl had to come down the line and kiss each guy….Whoa!. Nita and I danced a lot to live music that evening and had a few beers. After the party, I took Nita home. I didn’t get her home to close to 5 in the morning!!!! That morning, Nita’s family was driving to Ocean City Maryland. Nita’s mom wondered where NIta was so she called my house and spoke to my dad. He probably said don’t worry they are probably coming home after one of those post parties. Nita showed up soon after the phone call. And she didn’t get in trouble since she told her mom she was going to an after party and would be home early morning.

We dated throughout the next several years while I was at U of A. Nita spent her freshman year at Stephens College in Missouri and then transferred to U of A the next year when I was a senior. We continued dating after my senior year and Nita went back to Stephens College to finish her degree. I drove down to Stephens to visit her once while I was working my first year at the Northern Trust Company in Chicago. At that time I lived at home. After Nita finished that year at Stephens, we got engaged close to her birthday. I gave her a ring in Gilson Park, by Lake Michigan in Wilmette, Illinois. We had a great engagement party at Nita’s parent’s house in Wilmette. A wedding was planned for Nov 29 at a church in Wilmette.

We had around 150 people at our evening wedding. By best man was my brother Steve and ushers were Keith Bagge, Brock Fuller, Billy Culbertson and my younger brother David. We chose the song “ This Guys in Love with You” for our first dance. I have to mention a joke that Steve pulled off. When I was getting dressed at our house, I couldn’t find my shoes. I yelled. “Steve, do you have my shoes?” He came in my room with the shoes and said he just polished them. I thought that was weird because I already polished them. I turned them over and there on the bottom of each shoe were peace signs and the word “HELP”. I said, “I can’t wear these in church what happens when I kneel down.” Steve said it is too late and you don’t have other tux shoes.. So, when I knelt down at the altar, everyone could see what was on the shoes. My mom said my dad started laughing and she said, “What is so funny?” He said, “Look at Mike’s shoes.” I don’t know what she said or Nita’s mom and dad said.

After the reception, a limo was supposed to take us to a hotel by the airport but it never showed up. My mon told my dad that it was the only thing he was supposed to arrange that night!!!! The next morning we flew to the Virgin Islands for our honeymoon. After the honeymoon, we returned to our first apartment on the north side of Chicago that was close to the subway train to Chicago. We hated this apartment and moved a year later to 551 Hinman Avenue in Evanston, Illinois. We loved this old brownstone building that was close to the trains. The apartment had two bedrooms, one bath and dining room and living room. In the fall of 1972, Nita became pregnant with our first son, Mitchell. We lived in this third floor walk up apartment for another year and then bought a house at 1522 Meadow Lane in Glenview, Illinois. In the fall of 1975, our second son Brad was born. We continued to live at this house until 1978 when we moved to 900 Lenox in Glenview, Illinois. In 1981, we had our first daughter, Molly. Then in 1984, our second daughter Katie was born.

That’s Nita’s dad with the trumpet announcing her engagement. Nita’s grandmother is sitting in a chair to the side.

Career

Summer Jobs—-See H.M Harper Company

June 1969-Feb 1970… Teller… First National Bank of Winnetka, Illinois. I took this as temporary job out of college until I decided to interview at major banks in Chicago.

Feb 1970-August 1977….Financial Services Officer, Northern Trust Bank, Chicago. An opportunity to work in a treasury dept at a major corporation came up. I interviewed and took the job. This job started a major growth path in my career.

August 1977-November 1978…Cash Manager Worldwide, G.D. Seattle and Co. Skokie, Illnois. The VP and Treasurer of Searle took a job as EVP of Finance at Bankers LIfe in Chicago. He had a major task of taking a private company owned by a billionaire, John McArthur ( of the well known McArthur Foundation Fellows Fame) , to a public company, This was an exciting opportunity for me. Developing a system wide cash management system for many independent divisions of the company. I was able to reduce non earning cash balances of around $75-$100 million to assets earning 6% up to 20% during that rather historic time period of historically high interest rates due to double digit inflation! . I was promoted to VP and Head of the Investment Dept a short time after joining the company and was managing close to $1.5 Billion with 12 people reporting to me. That was a sizable amount back then.

November 1978-February 1985…VP-Investment Dept Head, Bankers Life and Casualty, Chicago, Illinois. Company was sold to a company in Louisville, Kentucky and job phased out. Took four months to find a new job that I liked.

July 1985-March 1987…VP Investments Marketable Securities, John Alden Life Insurance, Miami, Florida. Company was sold in 1987 and job phased out. Took almost three months to find a new job that I liked,

July 1987-April 1991…SVP in charge of Bond Dept, Chase Asset Management , Houston, Texas. Chase purchased JP Morgan and job phased out. JP Morgan group was in charge of investments since they were such larger than Chase Investment Group. At Chase, My group managed close to $20 billion and I had a staff of around 12.

May 2001-Nov 2001….Independent Contractor, Market Technician, Hedge Fund Group, Enron, Houston, Texas. Enron filed for bankruptcy in November 1991. Took almost eleven months to find a new job that I liked.

October 2002-Feb 2014…SVP Fund Manager and Compliance and Credit Research, Pacific Income Advisers, Santa Monica, California

Miscellaneous

Mike was on the Editorial Advisory Board of Cashflow Magazine for several years during the late 70,s to the mid 80’s. Cash Flow was a nationally distributed magazine for corporate treasury staff. He reviewed articles on various treasury related topics for the Editor.

Mike was interviewed for a two page feature article for Intermarket Magazine that was published in September 1984 . Intermarket was a nationally distributed magazine covering the futures and option market.

Mike was a member of The Cash Management Practitioners Association of Chicago for many years in the late 70’s and md 80’s and served as Treasurer for one year. The CMPAC was composed of around 75 corporate treasury personnel and met periodically to discuss topics of interest.

Mike was also a guest speaker on futures and options at seminars sponsored by Business Week, Chicago Board of Trade, Illinois CPA Society, and AMR

Personal Stories

Any notable anecdotes submitted by members of the family.