Anna Melo:
Hello, and welcome to Inside the Ice House. My name is Anna Melo. I am the curator for the historical archives here at the New York Stock Exchange, and I am joined today by the manager of the Stock Exchange Archives, Dave D'Onofrio.
David D'Onofrio:
Good afternoon.
Anna Melo:
And I am also joined by our special guest today, James Rutledge, longtime member of the New York Stock Exchange and former member of the Exchange Board of Directors. Welcome.
James Rutledge:
Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
Anna Melo:
It's a pleasure to have you. So for the sake of our listeners, James, tell us a little bit about your relationship with the New York Stock Exchange, and how did you originally find yourself here in the financial district?
James Rutledge:
Well, I found myself at the New York Stock Exchange in a rather circuitous path. In 1967, having just graduated high school, I was 18 years old, and it was in the throes of the Vietnam War, and I was drafted immediately. So I thought my next stop was Vietnam. However, I was ultimately classified as 4F, which was a deferment. So I did not go in the service, but I was in Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn when they gave me this determination.
So I said, "Hmm. Now I got to get a real job." So I took the subway across to Manhattan. And my mother in the 1930s worked for a small brokerage on Wall Street, and she always loved to talk about it with... She had real fond memories. So I said, "Oh, let me go look around Wall Street." And I roamed up Broad Street, and as I walked along, I saw a place with a sign out front, "Help wanted," and it was the New York Stock Exchange.
So now this is 19... I graduated 67. Early '68, very early, late '67, early '68. I answered that help wanted sign, and I walked in, and they were pretty shorthanded because so many people were in Vietnam of my age, and they were only looking for what was then called a squad boy. So they interviewed me for about one and a half minutes and said, "Okay, kid, let's see your draft card." I showed it to them. "All right, go down there. You got to see the nurse and then go see the tailor." And they fitted me for a uniform and they said, "Be back tomorrow, you start." "Okay."
So the next day I showed up with a small group of guys, and they ushered us up the stairs by the main entrance, the back Broad Street entrance. And first time I'm ever going to even see the floor of the exchange, I go up the stairs and in all honesty, I thought I walked into Yankee Stadium. It was just the coolest thing I ever saw. And I mean, I immediately fell in love with the place, and that's almost 60 years ago. I still love the place.
David D'Onofrio:
So I actually haven't come across a term squad boy. So what was that? And was that your first job or did you have a different... [inaudible 00:03:41] specific word?
James Rutledge:
Squad boy was kind of the low end of the totem pole, and your job was to roam around the floor. And when a broker raised his hand... If he was standing in an active crowd and his number went up on the enunciator board, and it would flash telling who wants him and where on the floor, he would raise his hand. And a squad boy's job was to come over and say, "Yes, Mr. So-and-so?" "Take this to booth double O and find out what they want. I'll be right here." So you would run over and you would run back, and that's how the whole process worked.
The other important part of that job was every morning I had to run through the graveyard at Trinity Church and go to the florist next to the American Stock Exchange, Creamers, I think was the name, and get a half a dozen boutonnieres for multiple brokers on the floor that were real Natalie dressed, and they wanted a boutonniere every morning. However, I was being paid $54.50 a week, that was the pay. I also got tips from these six or seven guys, which were equal to $54. So it was considerably more important to me than just a normal go get the flowers. Having done that for a while, I graduated to a tube man carrying those things around when they were leather. I don't know if you've seen the real old ones.
David D'Onofrio:
We have a few wood ones in the classroom with the leather band around them.
James Rutledge:
Yeah, okay.
Anna Melo:
Yeah. On our way out of here, we'll stop by Joel and we'll show you some of the OGs that he found.
James Rutledge:
I actually have one too.
Anna Melo:
Oh, cool.
James Rutledge:
Which I'll never give that up. It's too many memories. So anyway, you then graduate as a carrier. Then when they figure out you know what you're doing, your job primarily as a tube man, you had to know where some of the booths in your zone were located and which one of the tubes is them. And you would also get incoming orders coming in, and you would send reports through the tubes. And then, I would say now we're late '68, early '69, I got my first job as a clerk and I became what's called... They called it a pork chop, believe it or not.
I had my own pork chop section in one booth, double O, if anybody cares. It's gone now. And you would answer the phone and take orders and take reports and make phone calls for, in my case, five different firms as I built up my little fiefdom. And most, if not all those firms are gone now. So this is late '68, early '69.
Anna Melo:
Well, I got to ask, why pork chop?
James Rutledge:
Don't ask me why they say pork chop. I've asked that question myself, but that's what it was referred to. "We've got a job for you over here, but you can make extra money if you're pork chopping."
Anna Melo:
Oh, okay.
James Rutledge:
"Okay, fine." So you got to make a living.
Anna Melo:
No, that makes perfect sense now.
James Rutledge:
And for me, it was such a treat because 18 years old, and I got this job on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. My mother was ecstatic.
Anna Melo:
I'm sure. So late '60s, and we wanted to ask you about the zeitgeist and feeling on Wall Street when you started your career down here, because we know that this was the era of the paperwork crisis.
James Rutledge:
Mm-hmm.
Anna Melo:
And so you kind of got to see the paperwork crisis getting solved.
James Rutledge:
I did. And as a matter of fact, I should have mentioned that another part of why the job was so I thought I died and went to heaven was we got off on Wednesdays. And after I realized the reason why is we had the paperwork crisis. And I didn't understand what a paperwork crisis was. I'm 18 years old. And we were allowed to leave early a couple of days in the back end of the week, two o'clock. "Go ahead, kid. It's two o'clock, you can go."
And the mood, it seemed to me... I was so excited to be there that I didn't pick up on the mood right away, but the mood was pretty somber. And a lot of people were looking over their shoulder thinking they may lose their job because firms were going toes up pretty frequently. And it took a while to resolve that. As I got more aware of what I was doing, I started volunteering to make some extra money. And so we came in on Saturdays and we helped do the floor work that was required to coordinate with the upstairs desk. But as the crisis started to abate, I would say we started to see improvement in the mood as we went into the early '70s, '70, '71. However, the market did start to roll over in general.
Anna Melo:
Yeah.
James Rutledge:
And Vietnam was starting to wind down, but unfortunately we had the oil crisis and we had Nixon... What's past is prologue. We had Nixon putting in tariffs and things got not so good and jobs were lost. But as we went into '73, '74, they started to pick up a little bit and everybody seemed to get more comfortable. And in my own personal situation, I got really lucky. And in March of '73, I got my first seat. I became a broker, and I was 23 years old.
Anna Melo:
Wow.
James Rutledge:
So at the time I was, and I'll brag, I was one of the four or five youngest members in the history of this place.
Anna Melo:
Yeah, 23 is really young to get your membership.
James Rutledge:
Yeah. The four guys that preceded me, Arthur Cashin, whose name you've heard a million times, Peter Kellogg, Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, Al Smith, whose grandfather was governor of New York, and in fact was the first Catholic to run for President of the United States. And the other guy, honestly, I don't remember. So thankfully, I got a seat and the market was quiet, sloppy for another year or two, but things really started to improve. We started to see installations at the various posts of new technology, flat screen. Not flat screens, but they looked like televisions, but they were installing them around the posts. So we could see... It was primarily just data.
David D'Onofrio:
Yeah. What was that like having not only just the technology come in, and the technology that essentially replaced what had been one of your first jobs, but also just having literally a new trading floor being built directly above your heads? I mean, what was that like?
James Rutledge:
Well, it was a trip. We all thought it was going to interrupt our normal trading model. But I, in all honesty, have to take my hat off to everybody that... From the carpenters that worked here full-time, to their colleagues, to the technicians, I don't think I missed one order because of technology.
Anna Melo:
Wow.
James Rutledge:
It was probably the most disconcerting thing that I had seen because technology at that point was so new to all of us, but particularly to me. And I think if there was one thing that I had a tough time adjusting to was the framework above. First of all, I couldn't figure out why it was there. And it took me a while to finally have it explained to me more than once. And I was actually not happy with it from an aesthetic point of view. I always, by that time, having been there now for X amount of years, I kind of felt like I owned part of that building, and now they're blocking the view of the ceiling.
Anna Melo:
Of your ceiling.
James Rutledge:
Of my ceiling, which I thought was a cathedral-like. And I was so proud to... I used to bring guests down frequently. You're blocking my view of the ceiling. And they were killing my joke of so many years about the tall guy that used to change the light bulbs up there. Everybody would go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."
Anna Melo:
Something we never considered, killed that joke.
James Rutledge:
Yeah, I'm sure. So anyway, the work on the posts, while it was... It was smooth, and we all realized that it was ushering in the new era of trading on the New York Stock Exchange floor. And while we fought like hell to keep our pads and pencils, we knew what was coming. And sure enough, it did.
Anna Melo:
Well, actually, that's a perfect transition to we were going to ask since you were here for that major mechanical renovation in '79 to '81, and also more recently, starting in 2006, was the transition to the hybrid digital trading model, another huge transition, and so I kind of wanted to hear your thoughts on the compare and contrast between those two. Was it the same kind of feeling like you can pry my pencil out of my cold dead hands, but rinse and repeat? I just kind of wanted to hear what it was like for both of those moments.
James Rutledge:
It's kind of difficult to compare the pneumatic tubes to the handhelds. It'd be like comparing the horses to cars. But I always thought the pneumatic tubes, which I believe were installed when the building opened-
David D'Onofrio:
Yeah.
James Rutledge:
... was a phenomenal accomplishment at this place... I don't think they were anywhere else in the world, and they worked. They worked really well. The handheld, on the other hand, did not work so well-
Anna Melo:
Oh no.
James Rutledge:
... when it first was introduced. And to be perfectly honest, as you said, you had to tear my pad out of my fingers, my bloody fingers. And I always contended that I could execute an order faster with my pad and pen than a handheld computer. But truth be told, we all had to adjust, and they did eventually get faster than me.
David D'Onofrio:
But then in 2006, we have yet this other sea change, because at least up until then, we were still using open outcry. So we were still coming to price discovery by yelling at each other. And then-
James Rutledge:
Well, in 2006, as you know, we merged with Arca, and we became a public company. And so the membership, as we know it, we no longer controlled any of the decisions that were made structurally in this building. John Thain was president at the time, I think.
David D'Onofrio:
Yeah, he oversaw the public transition.
James Rutledge:
Yes. Well, yes, he orchestrated the whole thing. And I was actually very involved in that, thanks to John. So that's when we moved to a hybrid model. And I thought the hybrid model was a difficult transition for all of us, including our clients. And I think we could have done a little bit of a better job before we went full boat implementing it. However, change was necessary. We knew at the exchange that we were going to have to do that, to implement it, to stay competitive. And we adjusted, which this building and particularly the trading floor has always been known to adjust to survive.
Anna Melo:
Yeah, absolutely.
David D'Onofrio:
Right, because 20 years later after that, we still have a trading floor, unlike anyone else.
James Rutledge:
Yes, that's obviously a sore spot with many of my former colleagues that had to leave because they just weren't doing the business. But in answer to the question of do I think there still should be a trading floor? My answer to that would be that the trading floor should not be replaced because human interaction and intuition replaces some of the speed of technology in my view. And true price discovery requires interaction. And again, technology can't replicate some of what we did, what the guys do that are still there, in my view. And the floor, as I said before, has always been quick to integrate the new technologies. And I think we have, as an institution, done a pretty good job of doing that, and we continue to do that.
Another example is Pillar, which significantly changed this building, I think. And obviously I was here and I watched it develop, and I was suspicious that it wouldn't work, and I was very wrong. I mean, it not only worked, it thrived. And if you remember, well, Euronext was still on our platform, and Euronext contributed to us lifting our technology footprint and going right into ICE. And when ICE took us over, they decided to unwind Euronext. And Euronext has thrived on their own very well. But Pillar, I think, really helped us transition into today's marketplace. I hope we still can incorporate that with human interaction. And I'll, until the day I die, still think that humans are very effective in price discovery.
David D'Onofrio:
Well, the line I always like to use is that economics and finance are social sciences. If you take away the human beings, you don't have a social science, you just have science.
James Rutledge:
Well said. Very well said. I belong to an organization called the National Organization of Investment Professionals. I've been there for 35, 40 years. And it's buy side, sell side. Used to be a big influence of floor, trading floors. Unfortunately, they have, not unlike the entire business, trading floors since we are really the only active, and I don't think there's... I'm still there, but I'm not active either. And they're from domestic and Europe.
But I think most of the dialogue is rules. How is the SEC going to change trading rules? Tokenization, AI, speed, speed, speed. Price discovery, in their definition, in today's definition of price discovery, which in my view is a lot different than what I grew up with. And I'm sure it's going to continue to change, and it's going to change significantly when we go to 24-hour trading. And I'm not the least bit unhappy that I won't be involved in doing that. I'll be in the bar when you guys are running around doing whatever you're doing.
David D'Onofrio:
Think fondly of us when you're there.
James Rutledge:
Yeah, I will.
Anna Melo:
Please have one for us.
James Rutledge:
Yeah.
Anna Melo:
So let's ask fun questions. Okay. And I'm sure you saw at the end over here, just memorable moments and memorable people. So my first fun question is, who was the most memorable person that you ever met on the trading floor?
James Rutledge:
That's easy. Arthur D. Cashin III, I believe.
Anna Melo:
I had a feeling that that was going to be the answer.
James Rutledge:
Yeah. Well, I think if you asked anybody from the early '60s, late '50s, I guess is when he started down there, until the day he passed, which was last year, he influenced so many of us on the trading floor. All positive. He was always willing to teach. He was always willing to help out. If you had a problem understanding a rule... He wrote half the rules here. If you had a medical problem, if he didn't know the doctor, he knew somebody that knew the doctor. We had our own team on the floor that Arthur unofficially captained, where if you had a problem with your children, he knew the pediatric experts. If you had a problem with your prostate, he knew where to send you. And each guy on the floor... Al Smith was the guy to go to at Sloan Kettering. Of course, his father was on the board and he knew all the doctors.
David D'Onofrio:
Helpful.
James Rutledge:
Yeah. If you had neurological issues, you came to me because I was on the board of one of the... I had brain surgery, which allegedly was successful, in the early '90s. And I got on a couple of committees and boards. So if you had a problem in that area, I would give you a doctor's name. But Arthur was the quarterback. And Arthur wrote his daily newsletter, which I presume you guys have seen.
David D'Onofrio:
Cashin's Comments, yeah.
James Rutledge:
Cashin's Comments. And he told so many stories. We have what's called the Buttonwood Club, which initially you had to be a member 25 years before you were eligible to join the club. And Arthur was the head of the Buttonwood Club. And it was a collegiate group of guys that just... We'd get together a couple of times a year for dinners, outings. There was a New York Stock Exchange Golf Club, and we had golf outings every year.
And the Buttonwood, Teddy Weissberg we mentioned, there is a Buttonwood Foundation that used to be part of the Buttonwood Club. Now it's got its own identity, but that was formed to help... Again, we were a private not-for-profit organization, but we wanted to help all of our employees. So we set up the foundation to give out scholarships to their children, to help out if they had medical emergencies. And the foundation is still up and running. Since Arthur passed, the Buttonwood Club itself has been somewhat inactive, which just proves how important Arthur was. It's not totally disbanded yet, and there's been talk about trying to revive it, but you have to remember we had 5,000 people on the trading floor and 1,366 seats, so it was a lot more robust.
But not only that, Arthur would host our dinners and spend 15, 20 minutes every dinner telling stories that by the... Well, I would say the last 10 years, we all knew the stories because he told him year in and year out. But we all loved him and we all listened and we all laughed. But the collegiate atmosphere, I'm afraid the guys and girls on the floor have kind of missed out on because the community has shrunk so much.
And Arthur, I think even at the sixth floor, which is where management was in our days, anytime there was a problem, ring down to Arthur and say, "Arthur, come up." And he would bring stability to the building. He was great with the press. He was on every channel you can think of. During the crash, the first person that... I think even Ronald Reagan might've even called him to ask him about, "What do you think about this? What do you think about that?" And he's just a special guy. And to have him holding my hand when I first came out as a member was pretty good.
David D'Onofrio:
Yeah, that really drives home just, not only the role he played, but just really what a family the trading floor was, which for someone like me who never actually got to witness the 5,000 people down on the floor almost seems crazy. It almost seems like it would always be adversarial, but to know that at the end of the day everyone was just-
James Rutledge:
Just the opposite actually. And it's funny, I wrote a note down here to mention family. That's exactly what we were. My inner circle of maybe 500 or 1000 guys, I knew their wives, I knew their kids, I knew their grandkids. We played golf together, we drank together, we traded together. But when the bell rang at four o'clock, it was a totally different relationship, but that's where it transcended up to the Luncheon Club and every salon in the area. I'm going to be in trouble for saying that.
Anna Melo:
That's okay, pre-recorded. Pre-recorded.
James Rutledge:
We were one big family. As evidenced just 20 minutes ago when a long-time waiter gets off the elevator and it's like we were brothers. But I know Armando for 40 years. He's, I think, the oldest serving waiter left in the building. And when I came in on Broad Street, I talked to each one of the guards about their grandkids and everything else. That's the way, not just me, all of us were. My son grew up in this building. He's 41 years old, and do they still do Thanksgiving, bring your kids in?
Anna Melo:
Oh, yeah.
David D'Onofrio:
Yeah.
Anna Melo:
After Thanksgiving.
James Rutledge:
Yeah, the day after, right?
David D'Onofrio:
Yep.
James Rutledge:
I brought my son every year right up until five years ago. He said, "Dad, stop. I'm 35 years old." But I have pictures of him. We had a badge made for him every year. I'm over telling the story, but it was one big family. And unfortunately, I don't think that'll ever be replicated.
Anna Melo:
So we've gone through the operation, what it was like to be on the trading floor. Bell rings at four o'clock, end of the day. Everybody goes to the Luncheon Club. Tell us a little bit about what it was like to visit the Luncheon Club and a memorable moment from your time there.
James Rutledge:
Well, the lunch-
Anna Melo:
What you can remember.
James Rutledge:
Okay.
David D'Onofrio:
And what we can release to the public.
James Rutledge:
Yeah, that's an issue.
Anna Melo:
But also pre-recorded. Pre-recorded.
James Rutledge:
Well, and don't forget, some of the participants in a lot of the stories that might be some fun can't be told yet because they're still alive. But the Luncheon Club was the heart of this building for the members. It wasn't just a place to go to the bar. The dining room was absolutely knock your socks off. It was so beautiful. And it was a treat to bring guests. In general, it was a big... People would come in from out of town, from Europe, and they want to see the trading floor, but they also wanted to see the Luncheon Club also run by Arthur Cashin.
But the Luncheon Club was truly there for the members and they'd get you cars, they'd get you theater tickets, they'd get you sports tickets. They coordinated... I never had an office, so the Luncheon Club was my office. They had desks up there. They had couches so that in the morning, the members that got here early, we could go up and read the newspaper, catch up, a couple of small TVs. When I was much, much, much younger, once or twice I remember sleeping on those couches because I was out a little late the night before. Well before I was married. I got to put that disclaimer in there.
David D'Onofrio:
No judgment.
Anna Melo:
We'll keep that part in.
James Rutledge:
Okay. The dining room was a major attraction. That's well before you had those back stairs down to the boardroom. And there was a seafood bar. Were you guys... Do you remember that?
David D'Onofrio:
It was gone before my time, but I know it was supposed to be one of the finest oyster bars in the city of New York.
Anna Melo:
It's the famous-
James Rutledge:
When they tore it out, I have one of the refrigerators from there. It's an old-fashioned icebox.
Anna Melo:
Oh.
David D'Onofrio:
Because those I think were supposed to be, when they first opened up the club, some of the first commercial refrigerators in the entire city.
James Rutledge:
Yes, that's correct.
David D'Onofrio:
So that's a real piece of history to have that.
James Rutledge:
That's correct. I also have one of the original ticker tapes that's on the pedestal, and I have the ticker tape paper. There's one roll left, which if you guys ever want a piece of that at all, be happy to bring it in.
Anna Melo:
Yeah, that's true ephemera.
David D'Onofrio:
It wasn't meant to last.
James Rutledge:
No, it's very fragile. The bar at night was truly the first place that most of the trading floor, the guys would collect up there. Usually the stage, "What are we doing next?" But in my case, I used to travel a lot because I had expanded my business to other places in the country. So I traveled, I bought seats on the Boston Stock Exchange, Chicago Stock Exchange, and I would go out and see clients out there. I was just trying to make a buck. But I also spent time up there. And less and less time when I got married and my son was growing up. But it was very social, collegial. We did talk... More stock sometimes traded up in the bar, but then everybody-
Anna Melo:
I've heard that many times from many different people.
James Rutledge:
Yes. Well, right next door, which has since been altered, that little room right next to the bar area, that was the game room. And there were backgammon tables and other tables set up for Gin Rummy. And when I was in my 20s, it was not unusual to go up there and there'd be some of the old timers, and there was more money being passed around up there than on the trading floor. Once again, Arthur Cashin, before Bobby Van's opened, he used to go up there and sit at a table and play old records and have music on the radio and write his Cashin's Comments.
And if you made the big time, he would allow you to sit with him and go back and forth, buy him, in those days, Dewars and water and bring it back to him. But for the most part, it was gaming and it went on all day and all night. And the bar would start quieting down around seven o'clock and that's when everybody spread out. And you've heard of all the bars, I'm sure. Harry's being the favorite watering hole of most of us.
Anna Melo:
Yes.
James Rutledge:
Until Bobby Van's.
Anna Melo:
I'm assuming that we might already know the answer, but what's your favorite spot in the building? It's changed many times, but you've been all around it through its many, many transitions. What's your favorite place?
James Rutledge:
Obviously it's the trading floor. And then as I got older and I got more involved in politics of the building and everything else, the sixth floor became pretty important to me. And the boardroom was and is a beautiful room, and it was pretty cool to be in there. Now the 17th floor is where I know everybody hangs out. It's okay, but it's not a bar or anything.
Anna Melo:
No, it's just a canteen. It's not a bar, unfortunately.
James Rutledge:
Yeah. It's nice to see people and interact, but nothing compares to the trading floor to me. When I walked on an hour and a half ago, it's like being home. That sounds pretty corny. I'm sorry about that. But it is home to me. Never worked anywhere in my life, so it's pretty weird.
David D'Onofrio:
No, I mean, I can understand it. A number of years ago, I walked onto the floor with a former member, John Wertzberger, and he hadn't been on the floor, I think at that point, in 20 years. And people walk up to him and they're saying hello like it was yesterday. It was a phenomenal thing to see.
Anna Melo:
Yeah. Like you said, family. I'm bringing people into the building all the time, and a lot of the time it's brokers that spent many years on the floor and want to come back and see it. And it's every time they're going around, they're shaking hands. And as much as the floor changes, enough of it stays the same that you still-
James Rutledge:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Anna Melo:
You still have your landmarks, you can still recognize everything where everything is.
James Rutledge:
I ran into a fellow yesterday, and my wife and I were walking around Central Park, and I see a guy walking towards me saying, "I know this guy." And he walked up and he said, "256." And so that sounds strange, but that was my badge number.
Anna Melo:
That was your number.
James Rutledge:
And we all knew... If I go down to Florida, which is where a lot of the guys migrated after they retired, and everybody knows one another, they can't remember their names, but we remember their badge numbers. And typically the specialists, the DMMs, they were the ones that had to remember the numbers because they were recording everything into the system. So they knew the numbers better. But I saw Wertzie on Park Avenue a couple of years ago, and neither one of us could remember the badge numbers or our names. But I said, this is my wife, Joyce, and he said, "John Wertzberger." John, who was very generous with his time, he used to fly... I think he flies his own plane.
David D'Onofrio:
Yeah, Beechcraft.
James Rutledge:
Yeah. And he was flying kids that were sick and all that stuff. And he's also Wertzberger... You're too young to know Wertzberger beer. That's his family.
David D'Onofrio:
Wow.
James Rutledge:
Yeah.
David D'Onofrio:
Too young to ever drink it, but I've seen the labels.
James Rutledge:
Yeah, there you go.
David D'Onofrio:
You work in this field long enough, in history, you come across those things. Let's wrap up on just one final question. This may be actually the toughest one of all to try to narrow it down to one moment. But if you could choose one most memorable moment here at The Exchange, what would it be?
James Rutledge:
It's kind of hard to boil it down. Although actually, I already mentioned one of them in that in 1993, I collapsed in the Luncheon Club, and it was not cocktail related. And I ended up being rushed to a hospital that is no longer here, Beekman Downtown Hospital, which the New York Stock Exchange supported. So we always got first priority. And as it turns out, they found a golf ball-sized sphere in this noggin and ultimately extracted. But they told me, "That's it for you on the trading floor." And so I rang the bell and case closed.
Again, very lucky person. I was fine. And six months later, I returned. And coming up those... This is going to sound corny, but coming up the same steps that I came up the first day I walked on the floor. When I came up the steps, there was a broker named Mike Robbins. He was on the board of directors. He was one of the more influential brokers in this building. As I came up the steps, he looked at me and he said, my nickname was JR, "JR, welcome home."
I totally, as I'm going to do now, totally lost it. So that's probably one of my more... It doesn't relate to anything else. I did get to shake Ronald Reagan's, President Reagan's hand when he visited the floor. That was pretty cool. And the day of the crash, I would say, scared me the most on the trading floor as I not only was losing a lot of money for Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, who I was specializing for, but I was also thinking I had just bought my first apartment.
Anna Melo:
Oh no.
James Rutledge:
And I had a kid, relatively new kid at home. So it was like, "This is the end of the world." So that's memorable. Not a good memory, but it's-
David D'Onofrio:
Still sticks with you.
James Rutledge:
Yeah. Other than that, I would have to think too long to come up... I was so lucky.
David D'Onofrio:
Well, call me a softie. I prefer your first answer. Again, just cycling back to the story that this place was family.
Anna Melo:
Yeah.
James Rutledge:
Indeed.
Anna Melo:
And we are lucky to have this opportunity to have this conversation with you. Thank you so much, James, for coming to joining us here today.
James Rutledge:
It was a pleasure.