Dr. Heinz Blenneman, the Venture Capital Advisor at Alteon Capital Partners, gave an Investment Managing Seminar at the Faculty Dining Room on Wednesday during long lunch.

Blenneman opened with a short but detailed explanation of his background, including previous jobs he had held before deciding to invest in the stock market.

“I started off as an engineer for a while but my manager just gave me computer simulations, and after I was done with those, I just got more and more computer simulations. And I finally realized that there was probably more to life than just computer simulations,” he said, earning laughs from the audience.

Blenneman then explained on why humans naturally want money in the first place and  followed with tips and tricks that the students could use to maximize their cash, and even threw in some of his own ideas that helped him become successful.

“So if you guys want any specific places that I found were interesting and rewarding, here’s a couple–well, four actually – that I found to be good,” Blenneman explained, motioning to a graph on his explanatory Powerpoint.

Blenneman has had his fair share of setbacks despite his success. For example, in January of 2008, he was tricked out of his money. After the case was brought to court, Blenneman, along with several others who had been duped as well, won. Blenneman ruefully stated that he only got 10 percent of his original money back as compensation for the cash he had lost.

He wrapped up his seminar with a simple but thought-invoking African proverb that he described as being “actually quite relevant to the stock market nowadays in the concept of buying high and selling low.”

The last slide read, “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a gazelle or a lion, because when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”