WARF hires new director of investments

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) has hired a new director to manage the endowment it uses to help support university research.

Tom Weaver recently joined WARF, the UW’s nonprofit patent management organization, as the leader of the foundation’s investment department. His appointment follows the departure of the previous director of investments, Mark Bear, who retired from WARF on Dec. 31 after 26 years of service.

Weaver holds a bachelor’s degree and a master of business administration degree from the University of Missouri and is chartered financial analyst. He has spent the past five years as senior investment manager of the $2.1 billion Fairfax County Employees Retirement System in Fairfax, Va. While there, Weaver acted as an in-house investment consultant to the fund’s independent board, a position that gave him the flexibility to implement investment strategies outside the traditional pension plan model.

Prior to this, Weaver served for 15 years as president and principal owner of the investment management firm Davis, Weaver & Mendel, Inc., of Atlanta, Ga. Under Weaver’s watch, the company grew from a start-up business into a successful ongoing concern with $300 million in assets. The firm also became the nation’s No. 1 money manager in 1987, when it was able to keep its clients in cash during the stock market crash in October of that year.

Weaver also worked for the economic consulting firm of Arthur Laffer, who was a member of President Reagan’s economic policy advisory board, during the early 1980s.

“After conducting a nationwide search and interviewing many candidates, we feel extremely lucky to have Tom with us now,” says Carl Gulbrandsen, WARF’s managing director. “Not only does he bring tremendous experience, but he also has a very deep connection to Wisconsin and UW–Madison.”

Weaver’s father, John Weaver, served as the first president of the UW System from 1971-1977, and his grandfather, Andrew Weaver, was a professor of speech at UW–Madison from 1918-1961. Completing this picture, Weaver’s daughter Carrie will soon begin studying for her master’s degree in speech pathology at UW–Madison.

Risk management forms the core of Weaver’s investment philosophy. This involves understanding the risks of different investment options and balancing those risks so that a portfolio isn’t vulnerable to any one factor, such as the stock market. Applying this approach to WARF’s monetary assets should allow the foundation to grow under all market conditions, including stalled economic growth and rising inflation, says Weaver.

WARF serves the UW–Madison by patenting inventions made by university faculty, staff and students; licensing the technology to companies for commercial development; and returning the revenues to the university to fund further research. The income WARF shares with the university comes from two sources: the royalties paid on licensed inventions and the income from WARF’s investment portfolio.

“A strong investment portfolio is critical to our success; it’s what allows us to continue providing a high level of support to the UW–Madison year after year,” says Gulbrandsen. “Mark Bear and the other members of the investment team have been excellent stewards of our endowment for the last 26 years, and I’m sure this tradition of excellence will continue now that Tom is at the helm.”