Financial History Issue 120 (Winter 2017) | Page 6

THE TICKER

MUSEUM NEWS

The Museum always shines its brightest on Gala night, and this year was no exception. On February 1, 450 guests came to the Museum for a cocktail reception before moving across the street for dinner at Cipriani Wall Street.

The focus of the evening was our two honorees: Joe Ricketts, who received the Charles Schwab Financial Innovation

David J. Cowen | President and CEO

Award; and Larry Summers, who received the Whitehead Award for Distinguished Public Service and Financial Leadership. Fred Tomczyk, former president / CEO of TD Ameritrade, introduced Joe; and Ray Dalio, founder and co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, introduced Larry. Charles Schwab made remarks about the Financial Innovation Award, which is named in his honor. All five speakers stressed the importance of the Museum and its core mission of preserving, exhibiting and teaching about the nation’ s finances and financial history. [ See their remarks on page 12.]

The trustees had a strong showing, and in attendance were Chairman Richard Sylla, Vice Chair Andrea de Cholnoky, Alvi Abuaf, Greg Bauer, Sandy Crystal, Martha Clark Goss, Marcy Cohen, Charles Elson, Al Hurley, Adam Goldstein, Bob Hotz, Myron Kandel, Glenn Kaufman, Consuelo Mack, Marge Magner, Verne Sedlacek, Karen Seitz, Mark Shenkman, Kevin Shine, David Shuler, Maria Smith, Ewout Steenbergen and Charles Wait, as well as Founder and Chairman Emeritus John Herzog.

To the credit of our board and staff, with particular thanks to our Director of Development Jeanne Driscoll, we raised over $ 1.25 million. This number represents an all-time high and something to be very proud of. However, our dedicated fundraising efforts continue— and your support is most welcome— as we turn our attention to the Museum’ s vision for the future.

In my prepared remarks for the evening, I shared the following anecdote:

What is it like to be a Museum president? Sure, I receive my share of compliments, but I also get the occasional complaint. I want to share a complaint I received last summer from Louise Kaye, age seven. She writes,“ Why did you display a check of Aaron Burr in the Hamilton Room? Don’ t display anything of Aaron Burr. Burr killed Hamilton and most people like me who love Hamilton don’ t like thinking about Aaron Burr.” I responded,“ Dear Louise, Hamilton is also one of my heroes, but we cannot re-write history, and Burr is a part of the larger story. However, enclosed please find a Hamilton bobble head from the Museum Shop to comfort you.”

I then turned to our vision for the future, which is a new state-of-the-art museum based on three distinct exhibit subject areas: public finance, private finance and personal finance.“ Public” is our government’ s fiscal situation;“ private” is businesses, exchanges and the entrepreneurial spirit that built our

county; and“ personal” is how money and finance affect each one of us in our lives. Integrated into each of these three exhibit spaces are the four overriding themes of budgeting, risk, investment and credit, for whether you are the United States government or an average citizen, you deal with those identical issues.

Finance is a technology that moves money forward and backward through time— think of a 401k moving money forward for your retirement, or a mortgage for your first house moving it backward. And, of course, as we explain why finance matters, one of the key components of this area will be explaining the original architect of the financial system, Alexander Hamilton, for it is his economic vision of finance-led growth that we have lived and prospered under.

Therefore, by the time visitors leave the Museum, they will understand how finance can empower them and how they can make better financial decisions that positively impact the rest of their lives.

I look forward to working with the staff, board and funders to realize this dream.

David Cowen( center) with Charles Schwab and Joe Ricketts at the Museum’ s 2017 Gala.

Elsa Ruiz

4 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Winter 2017 | www. MoAF. org