Money

  • Investment business and family flourish with library support

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  • When Alex Kastor needed a name for his new investment partnership firm, he turned to Teton County Librarian Adam Van Sickle. Kastor, whose father is Greek, wanted to link the name of his new investment partnership to his family heritage. So he looked to the library and our librarians to dig into the history of Phoenician enterprise.
  • “Adam was crucial in helping us,“ Kastor says. “He found a bunch of books and other research through library databases.“
  • Kastor discovered an intriguing history about the Phoenicians, who pooled investor funds to outfit boats, which then traveled the coast of Africa to buy silks and other goods. Upon return, the traders sold the goods and split the profits with their investors. “As it turns out, the Phoenicians 3,000 years ago were probably the inventors of investment partnerships,“ Kastor says. Through his library research, Kastor also landed on the ideal name for his company, Thisavros Management, LLC. The Greek word thisavros means “treasure” or “to enrich.“
  • Kastor already knew library staff well after spending many hours in library study rooms while he attained his Chartered Financial Analyst designation. “I camped out here from after work until they kicked me out,“ Kastor says with a smile.
  • Kastor and his wife, Dawn Tate, first used the library about 10 years ago during a visit to Jackson to see if they could find a place to live. They turned to the library for free internet access during their week-long house hunt. During that trip they signed a lease on an apartment and signed up for library cards.
  • Going to the library continues to be part of a weekly routine. Tate enjoys perusing the collection for books on hobbies from cooking to gardening. “Not that we actually garden, but we check out a lot of gardening books,“ she jokes. Likewise, Kastor says, “We have high aspirations to do a lot of things.“
  • Borrowing books for free allows them to investigate their aspirations without spending money on a hobby that may or may not take root, they say. They still buy books, too. Fans of the Library Friends biannual book sale, they even brought friends and family to the book sale, which coincided with the weekend they were married in Jackson.

  • Now that they have a new four-month-old daughter, Violet, the couple is tapping into the library’s collection of parenting resources. Tate is a fan of the library’s new digital magazine service, Zinio. With her library card number and pin, Tate can use Zinio to access online editions of any of the more than one hundred magazines that Wyoming libraries subscribe to in the state, including Parenting, Vegetarian Times and Ladies’ Home Journal. She can even read them from the comfort of her own home.
  • Kastor also continues to use the library to cultivate his new business, which invests in underappreciated, ignored and undervalued companies.

  • “We buy our companies like we buy our groceries,“ he says. “When the Whole Grocer has a two-for-one sale on tomato sauce we stock up. We think about buying our companies much the same way. When they’re on sale we stock up.“
  • Finding investment bargains takes research, and Kastor continues to use to the library as a resource. Through Interlibrary Loan, he can check out economic textbooks from the University of Wyoming’s vast finance collection for $1 each. Those textbooks often retail for $100.

  • Like his wife, he’s also taking advantage of digital magazines on Zinio, which allows him to freely download publications that cover financial topics. He also taps into in-house reference materials and library databases for economic stats and information on public companies.

  • “It’s just another source to use to look for that needle in the haystack, that diamond in the rough,“ says Kastor of those underappreciated investment opportunities just waiting to be unearthed.
  • To find out more about how you can unearth your own treasure with the library’s research services or digital magazine service Zinio or Youth Services, call 733-2164 or visit http://www.tclib.org.

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  • Try before you buy

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