Investing with Intent, with Vincent Intrieri

Dr. Ralph Ford, chancellor of Penn State Behrend, talks with Vincent Intrieri, founder and CEO of VDA Capital Management and an Alumni Fellow, about the Intrieri Family Student-Managed Fund. Originally recorded on November 7, 2024.

Transcript

Entrepreneurship and Mentorship in Business

Ralph Ford 0:00

I am Dr Ralph Ford , chancellor of Penn State Behrend , and you are listening to Behrend Talks . My guest today is a very special friend , mr Vincent Intrieri , the founder and CEO of VDA Capital Management , and he and his wife Joanne are the creators of something very important here at Penn State Behrend , known as the . Intrieri Student Managed Fund and we're going to talk a whole lot about that . He's also a graduate , 1984 graduate of Penn State , Behrend in accounting . Welcome to the show , Vince .

Vincent Intrieri 0:28

Thanks , Ralph . I appreciate being here and hopefully we can have a great discussion .

Ralph Ford 0:33

We're going to have a great conversation . I love to run through people's bios . You've really accomplished , you've done so much . So , if you don't mind , I'm going to take a few moments to run through your bio and hopefully it embarrasses you a little bit i .

Ralph Ford 0:47

Your fund was created in 2012 . It's managed by students in our Black School of Business and , importantly , they invest real dollars . It's not mock , it's not funny money which raises the stakes . The fund started with a $100,000 gift , again from you and your wife , Joanne . It's currently valued at this is amazing 1.4 million dollars . You founded VDA Capital Management , a private investment firm , in 2017 , but before then , you worked for many years with Carl Icahn the infamous Carl Icahn legendary investor , known for his work with TWA , marshall Fields , time Warner and I know you still work with him as we speak and he also was an investor in Donald Trump's casinos in New Jersey as well . Yes , we were distressed Distressed . You're an expert in distressed assets .

Vincent Intrieri 1:34

Yes , that's kind of what my original forte into the investment world was distressed debt .

Ralph Ford 1:42

Well , you serve on the boards of a number of companies as well Transocean Hertz , global Holdings and Navistar , to name a few and you also still serve on our board here for the Black School of Business , and you're a very active member of that board , for which we greatly appreciate . And today is November 7th 2024 , just to mark the date , let's start with your trip here to Behrend . And how did you end up at Penn State Behrend ? You were a returning adult student , I believe .

Vincent Intrieri 2:09

Yes , yes , interesting little journey . And in addition to the boards I'm on , ralph I just was named chairman of the board of Sandridge Energy , probably about three , four weeks ago . Congratulations , yeah thanks .

Ralph Ford 2:26

What do they do in the energy space ?

Vincent Intrieri 2:28

Drill in Oklahoma , the headquarter in Oklahoma . They have properties in Oklahoma and Texas and hopefully under the new administration with less controls and other things , they'll do very well , I'm sure .

Ralph Ford 2:42

expanding is the US is people don't know we're an energy exporter now and we have been for quite some time , actually like a decade .

Vincent Intrieri 2:50

So the interesting story , and I'm going to talk about this a little tonight . For some of the students that we're going to talk to tonight , I was always the smartest kid in school , in the class , but I don't know what it was . I must have gotten bored because class was slow or what have you . And so I was very much of an underachiever in my younger days of academia and high school . And you know , I went to a Catholic school for a while . You know the nuns would always be slapping me with a you know a ruler saying you know , come on , vince , you're the smartest kid in the class , you got the highest IQ , but you can't perform . And so after high school I kind of took a hiatus , was not sure what I wanted to do , and I started working at General Electric Company here in Erie in the factory .

Vincent Intrieri 3:52

I was a machinist . I went to school to learn machining . I did that for a little while . I drove a Jitney in the stock room . I did that for a while .

Vincent Intrieri 4:06

And I remember the one thing I always try to impress upon people is having a mentor in your life and in your business , career , et cetera , is so important and I've been so lucky my entire life to have good mentors all along the road , even at GE , in you know a factory that I was working . You know my foreman guy named Lee Couch who , god rest his soul is no longer with us . You know we went out for a beer one night and and he's telling me , you know , vince , you're smart , you're a leader , you get stuff done , you're hardworking , yada , yada , yada . And at that point I kind of he kind of said to me , what are you doing in a factory ? And I went home that night and thought about it .

Vincent Intrieri 5:04

I said to myself , what the hell am I doing in a factory ? And that led to the road . So they said , hey , I'm going to go into school , go to pet state baron . So you know , I looked at gannon , I looked at baron and I , you know , I like baron . And so I came up . Plus , it was a lot cheaper than gannon at the time . I don't know what , what it is now , but it was still lot cheaper than Gannon at the time .

Ralph Ford 5:26

I don't know what it is now , but it was Still . Yeah , there's a difference .

Vincent Intrieri 5:28

Privates are generally quite a bit higher , and that started my road to the accounting field at Behrend .

Ralph Ford 5:35

So that's how it started and I mean so . Our listeners know you and I have known each other for probably 15 years . We had a nice dinner last night , actually , you told us the story . So you're this returning adult student and I think you're working at the same time while you're going to school . Yes , you were working and you found sometimes the other students were messing around in class .

Vincent Intrieri 5:56

Yeah , I was telling you last night that when I went back to school as more of an adult student I think I was probably 22 , 23 years old I started in , I think , 1979 , and I graduated as a part-time student at night after work , and then I matriculated to full-time student and I think in my last two or three semesters I must have took 20 . And I think in my last two or three semesters I must have took 20 . I had to get special approval from whoever the dean was at the time Lilly , I think . Yeah , it would have been John Lilley . Early on I had to get special approval to take 25 or more credits because I was , you know , I wanted to finish as quickly as possible . I wouldn't let you do that now .

Ralph Ford 6:41

You wouldn't Maybe if you were exceptional .

Vincent Intrieri 6:45

I was exceptional , you were exceptional . But last two semesters were pretty tough and you know I was taking a lot of credits so that I could get done and ultimately graduated in 84 . So even though I was going part-time for probably the first two years , I finished almost on time , starting in 79 . I think maybe a half a year late or something .

Ralph Ford 7:09

Why accounting ? Why did you pick accounting ?

Vincent Intrieri 7:13

It's a good question . I saw that question and I thought about it . Listen , I was always good in math , and math has little did I know at the time . Math has nothing to do with accounting , but it doesn't hurt to be smart in math and be in accounting . I thought it was a practical kind of major that I'd be able to make money in , and so that's why I chose accounting .

Ralph Ford 7:39

It's one of those things where it's always in demand .

Vincent Intrieri 7:42

I always figured it would be in demand . You had a variety of kind of venues you could go to , tax audit consulting , and so you know it was . I thought it was a good major to take and I still believe , for a variety of reasons , that accounting is a absolutely great major for kids because there's so many jumping off points that you can go to after you get your degree in accounting .

Ralph Ford 8:12

Yeah , so many become CFOs and we'll talk about your path and capital management , but you don't see it being overtaken by AI or anything like this , where AI can do basic accounting .

Vincent Intrieri 8:22

I mean , yeah , ai might be able to do some basic accounting . I don't think it's going to overtake the accounting industry . There are so many things that have to be , judgments that have to be made , that personally I wouldn't rely on a machine that is maybe biased or not as to what resolution should be .

Ralph Ford 8:46

I think it can only be used as a tool , probably for them to use . Yes , no question about it . So let's talk about the early part of your career . You worked at Price Waterhouse and Arthur Anderson .

Vincent Intrieri 8:55

Yeah , I actually started in Erie at a place called Root , spitz , s , smiley , I think it's an accounting firm that's still here . I was down at 10th and State Street somewhere around that area From Root spitz . I was there actually working at Rootspitznos in my junior and senior year as a part-timer , so that was my kind of internship . And then I got hired full time and I wanted to continue to grow and I went to .

Career Progression and Industry Connections

Vincent Intrieri 9:32

After maybe about a year , year and a half in Erie , I got a position at Cooper's and Lbrand in Pittsburgh . So I went there . I was in the audit department Again .

Vincent Intrieri 9:43

I was an older staff accountant at Cooper's Kids , coming out of school at 22 , I was 26 or whatever I was at the time . I took things a little more seriously . I had grown up , so to speak . So I went to Cooper's Aibrand . I transferred with Cooper's out to Phoenix , arizona . My brother Gene , talked me into moving out there . He said oh , it's so nice out here , it's just dry heat . Little did I know when I went out there . I said , gene , after I'd been there a little while I said you know , when you go into a sauna , I think the sauna is about 110 degrees , and that's supposedly a dry heat too . But that's you know . In Phoenix you get up to 117 .

Ralph Ford 10:34

I lived in Arizona for five years . I told people that dry heat stuff only works to maybe 105 . Yeah right .

Vincent Intrieri 10:39

Exactly so . Then again I developed great mentors at Coopers and Libran , a guy named Dave Williams , Katie Roll . They were instrumental in helping me grow there . Then Dave Williams left Coopers and went to a firm in Dallas , texas Pricewaterhouse on the consulting side . So at this time I was still on the audit side and Dave called me , you know , six months later , after he had left . He said Vince , what are you doing ? So what do you ? What do you think I'm doing ? I'm working . He said , you know , I got a possibility of a position here in Dallas . Would you be interested ? I said , dave , I don't know if I'd be interested or not , but I certainly won't say no right off the cuff , let's explore it . So we explored it and shortly thereafter I moved to Dallas , texas , in what they called the bankruptcy and reorganization group , and so that was kind of the start of my consulting side . So I was with Pricewaterhouse in Dallas . They moved me to , you know , and I continued to move up in the organization .

Vincent Intrieri 11:57

It's funny about these organizations that we'll talk about a little later , about how they don't recognize talent and how they a lot of these firms have a time and distance kind of requirement You've got to be there so many years to get to this level , so many years and I was not as patient as they wanted me to be and so I went up to Chicago . I was kind of a senior leader in the Chicago PW group and in Dallas at PW I met a fellow named Don Thomas who was a senior partner at Pricewaterhouse in the bankruptcy and reorganization group and he and I developed a very good rapport and he went over to Arthur Anderson and several years later recruited me to Arthur Anderson as a partner . So I joined Arthur Anderson as a partner . I was with them in Chicago , which is their headquarters , arthur Anderson , probably about three years and being in one of these big firms , it just got to be that I didn't want the administrative headache .

Vincent Intrieri 13:08

I'm a doer . A lot of these firms , as you move up in the organization gets to be 70% of your time is spent dealing with the bureaucracy rather than doing what you kind of like . And at that point I was working for great clients in the bankruptcy field and developed a very good relationship with some guys from an outfit called Elliott Associates , which is a very big hedge fund out of New York I think they're probably up over $25 billion now and Chuck and Paul Singer the kind of the principal Paul Singer was the principal of Elliott developed a good relationship and they made me an offer to come and join them as a portfolio manager at Elliott Associates and I took that opportunity and tonight I'll expand upon you know how that all kind of came to be and the challenges and so forth with that .

Ralph Ford 14:18

And just for reference for our listeners , you're speaking on campus tonight . You're meeting with students while you're here today . It's going to be a lot of interactions . I didn't mean to interrupt you .

Vincent Intrieri 14:26

Yeah , no it's been great . I've been to two classes this morning , I think Finance 451 and Finance 330 or something . Yeah , finance 330 . Very interesting classes and maybe we'll talk more about that later , absolutely .

Ralph Ford 14:45

So how did you ultimately meet Somehow ?

Vincent Intrieri 14:47

you got connected with Carl Icahn , yeah , so when I was at Pricewaterhouse can't recall exactly what year we represented the creditors committee of TWA and at the time TWA was owned 80% was owned by Carl Icahn and my clients had bonds and TWA went into Chapter 11 . We represented the official committee and that's where I got to know Carl . I was an adversary to him at first . I see Another interesting tidbit Not an easy place to be ,

Navigating Financial Markets With Experience

Vincent Intrieri 15:26

no , no . Another interesting tidbit to this story is that I met my wife at TWA . She was a manager of labor relations dealing with pilots , and that's probably one of the only reasons why she can put up with me .

Ralph Ford 15:42

She dealt with tough people in the past . Well , I know Joanne well . You two get along well together . Yes , we do . But you certainly have spirited conversations . Yes , we do .

Vincent Intrieri 15:51

And so Carl and I hit it off . He Didn't necessarily like me at first but I think respected me and over time when I got to Elliott I was doing Distressed at Elliott , carl always was doing Distressed and a variety of other investment types and we were working on a company called Marvel Entertainment together . He had an investment with his firm and he'd get on conference calls . We at Elliott had an investment and I would be on the conference calls and we developed a very good rapport , found that we could work together developing strategy and other things . And at some point I think I was with Elliot , maybe four or five years At some point Carl came to me and said Vince , my distressed guy is leaving . Do you want to come join me ? And you know , we talked and ultimately the opportunity arose that I could come join him .

Ralph Ford 16:56

And you stayed . You worked with him . For how many ?

Vincent Intrieri 16:58

years , approximately 20 years . I think it was 18 and a half , 19 years , 20 years .

Ralph Ford 17:02

I rounded to 20 . So can you explain to listeners , you know , because it's important , but not everyone really understands the importance of people who specialize in distressed assets and what you do and what you bring to the larger world in economy .

Vincent Intrieri 17:17

Yeah Well , back then , distressed investing , I think , was a lot different than it is now . It was a little more of the Wild West , whereas today things have tightened up so that it's not as free-for-all type of situation . But you go out , you analyze a company that is in trouble , whether they're in Chapter 11 or prior to Chapter 11 . You start buying up . If you like the company and you think there's opportunity to create value in some way , you buy up the bonds and you take it from there .

Vincent Intrieri 18:02

And sometimes it's a kind of a buy to own strategy , sometimes it's a buy to make money strategy . And those are two different strategies and the way you do those strategies is different . The one buy to own you kind of got to get a really big position so that you can control the end event , whereas the latter , which is just an investment , you kind of buy and you play in the sandbox well , with a bunch of other creditors to try and create the value and get out at a substantial profit . So they're very nuanced in the differences , but it's an interesting business .

Ralph Ford 18:49

And you during this time , these 20 years , you're living in New York City , you're in the midst of everything that's happening in Wall Street , and you were there during the 2008 financial crisis . Any interesting experiences or stories that you want to share from that time ?

Vincent Intrieri 19:05

Yeah , it was . As you guys know , it was a very volatile era . Things were falling apart . Banks were feared to be closing , going under . I think Airstearns got gobbled up by JP Morgan for virtually nothing . I think what was the other firm , another investment firm , was on the verge of bankruptcy . Cash mutual funds were defaulting . I mean , it was a very , very troublesome time . And the distressed debt market both distressed bank debt , distressed bonds were really falling like a rock .

Vincent Intrieri 19:50

The one thing on Wall Street is you don't want to catch a falling knife , but I saw and Carl saw . I saw and Carl saw there were opportunities here to take advantage of , and Carl was never one to shy away from risk and opportunity . And that's principally what I learned from Carl is you have to evaluate risk and opportunity , and sometimes you're not sure of whether the opportunity is as good as the risk , and you have to go with gut feel , and that comes with a lot of experience . In any event , there was one day I'll never forget it , and I tell this story often where I was in my office and I had a bunch of guys in the office and we're talking about 10 different situations that we were looking at , and Carl comes sauntering in from his office . His office was kind of not too far away from mine . He'd come through a door into his big office , into my little office . And he comes into the office . He's standing there listening and he says you know , guys , can you leave me and Vince alone here for a minute ? And so you know , can we have the room ? Yeah , we had him and I in the room .

Vincent Intrieri 21:09

He shuts the door , he says Vince and I'll try not to be too grotesque , but he says what the heck are you doing ? And I said what are you talking about , carl ? He says you're buying bonds like a drunken sailor . And I said , carl , these are all great opportunities . I said we've been through them . You like them ? He said yeah , but I didn't know you were going to go crazy like this . And I looked at him . I said , carl , here's what's going to happen . I'm either going to be as rich as you or you're going to be as rich as me . And he looks at me trying to process that . He opens his eyes and he says yeah , that's what the hell I'm afraid of .

Ralph Ford 21:56

I'm going to be as rich as you . No thanks .

Vincent Intrieri 21:58

I think it turned out the other way . Yeah , things turned out great and he made billions during that period of time .

Ralph Ford 22:03

Well , it was very memorable for all of us who lived through it .

Vincent Intrieri 22:07

I mean I lived through it sitting here Scary times Scary .

Ralph Ford 22:09

I remember watching the TV with my wife and saying you know , is there going to be an economy tomorrow ?

Vincent Intrieri 22:14

Will our assets all be . I mean , people were worried , if you remember , people were worried , if you remember you had money in cash , money market funds that were feared to be going broke . I mean , it was unbelievable .

Ralph Ford 22:29

Well , hopefully never again , at least in our lifetimes . Well , let's talk a little bit Knock on wood , Knock on wood , right ? We never , you know . Look , every 10 years we seem to create some sort of financial mess . That's a whole different story . But you've created your own financial capital firm called VDA Capital VDA .

Vincent Intrieri 22:46

Capital Management yeah , it's a private office . So in the end of 16 , I decided 20 years on Wall Street , especially with a tough taskmaster like Carl , it's a lot of years and I felt like I was getting a little burned out and I decided I wanted to do something on my own . I initially went out , was going to raise money to start my own hedge fund , and what I found out at the time is that many of the investors and Carl was going to invest also , but he wanted me to go out and raise money separate and apart from him , and he'll give me the same terms that I could raise the money on . And what was happening is I had a lot of interest to raise a substantial amount of money , but my belief was and obviously I had to put my money in with them and I was going to do that but in distressed debt , my belief is that you have to have locked up money , so money that's kind of committed for five years or more , and at the time people didn't want to do that . They would lock up for a year , but they wanted to have the ability to take out money whereby , over a one-year period , they could take all their money out , and I just was not willing to put my money side by side with what I considered hot money , which leads to a funny story Again around the 2008 timeframe .

Vincent Intrieri 24:26

At that time , many hedge funds were putting in place what were called gates , and what gates were is that it suspended the ability of investors to access their funds for a period of time , and you know it could be as long as two or three years . But when you put up gates , that's kind of like in the investment world a no-no , no one will invest with you going forward , because you're putting your money into a hedge fund or a fund which you think is liquid , and then all of a sudden they tell you sorry , not so liquid as you thought , and so people don't like that . And so you know Carl never even thought about putting up gates for his fund . And you know , at the time I think we're icon capital was probably around 15 , 10 , 15 , 20 billion dollars and some of the investors found out that carl's not putting up gates . And so you know these aggregators I call , call them . You know they work for other money people and place investments for them , and they found out that we weren't . So they come over and meet with Carl and Carl would tell them say listen , I'm not putting up a gate . You can take your money out if you want , he said . But I'm going to tell you . I recommend that you don't .

Vincent Intrieri 25:58

You don't understand the market . What's going on here . We've studied it and the dislocation we're going to make a fortune on these positions when , I don't know , might be six months , might be a year , might be two years , but we're going to make a lot of money on these . And a lot of the firms had to take the money out because they just needed it . They needed it .

Vincent Intrieri 26:25

And the beauty of having a lot of money . You've heard the old saying money makes money . Carl had free money of his own . He put someone takes out a billion dollars . He put a billion in so it never had to sell positions . And that's what I'm talking about when I say you can't have hot money , because in a situation where you don't have the ability to refund the money that comes out , you're forced then , in order to come up with the cash , to sell positions and you'd be selling them at what we thought were distressed prices . And so it was . It's about that long view . It's about the long view . And Carl again made another fortune on those investments . And it wasn't like he didn't warn people , he kept . I remember being in these meetings so many times where he's telling people , listen , you're making a terrible mistake taking your money out . You're going to make a lot of money . And he said , oh , I know , I know , but I need the money . I got investors of my own that I got to get back to . So that's kind of the 2008 story .

Ralph Ford 27:37

Well , that's great . I mean , I think our listeners will love that part of it . In 2012 , you and your wife Joanne made this really generous gift to start the Intrieri Student Managed Fund here at Behrend . Why don't you tell us , you know , why did you do that and what was the need that you saw in creating this student managed fund ?

Vincent Intrieri 27:53

Yeah , that's a very interesting situation , ralph . I was at that time trying to give back to Penn State Behrend . Behrend was great for me , I mean , it was turned a kid that was , and I can say this in reality I was a middle class person . My parents weren't two professors . Little Italy here in Erie Grew up in little Italy here in Erie and we were real middle class , if that maybe even a little shade down from middle class . In any event , behrend was so helpful to me so I wanted to give back . So I was working I think at the time I was working with Bology Roger .

Ralph Ford 28:44

Capaldi . Yeah , roger Capaldi , timing's about right , probably between him and John Magan . We're both directors of the Black

Student-Managed Fund Success

Ralph Ford 28:50

School of Business .

Vincent Intrieri 28:50

Yes , and he was telling me one day , you know , I think , I was up here and I went to a couple of classes and he was telling me one day , you know , I think , I was up here and I went to a couple of classes and he was telling me about this great class that they do it's a mock portfolio class . And so Balaji and I had a long discussion about what I thought about mock portfolio classes and we came up with the idea and I think Margie Taylor was involved , john was involved and Balaji and we came up with this idea for the student-managed fund where students could actually get real experience managing real money . My view on these mock portfolio classes was they usually have a prize or something for who does the best investment returns , and so kids go home and figure out what one , two or three high beta portfolio stocks they could put their money in to win the prize , and that , to me , doesn't help teach them anything other than I won't say it's simulated .

Ralph Ford 30:10

There's no risk , no skin in the game .

Vincent Intrieri 30:12

There's no skin in the game In any event . So we came up with this plan and we put the plan into process . Took a while to get it rolling . University Park put up a lot of impediments , shall I say .

Ralph Ford 30:31

I think I lived through some of those too .

Vincent Intrieri 30:33

But we got through it and ultimately the fund started . It started at $100,000 . And then over time we were doing little fundraisers where I think Kevin had come on to run development for Penn State Behrend and it wasn't working . I would match whoever put money in and you'd get I don't know a thousand bucks here and there , nothing significant , because the goal always was to get the fund up to a million dollars and then be able to use the excess over a million to give scholarships to kids here at Behrend .

Vincent Intrieri 31:14

And so one day I was talking to Pat Black and Pat Black was instrumental in my view of getting this fund to being a working fund . Pat challenged me . He says I'll tell you what Vince I'll put in 150 if you put in 150 . I said , okay , done , deal , and we did . It grew the fund to over a half a million and the kids took it from there and I'll tell you , these kids in the student managed fund they worked their tails off . This is a lot of work . I don't think I don't think even you realize , ralph , the work it takes . They don't even get credit for it . They don't get course credit .

Ralph Ford 31:57

I know Well they get a little bit now .

Vincent Intrieri 31:59

They do get a little now . At the time they weren't getting any credit for course credits . They were doing it just to learn . The work it takes to do this stuff is unbelievable , and so I commend all of the students who have come through the program . Over the years I've met quite a few of them . They're all hard-charging , hard-working students who have done a great job , and the fund is now at , I think , $1.4 million and we've been giving out , I think , something like $30,000 to $50,000 worth of scholarships over the last couple of years .

Ralph Ford 32:39

It's a great story , and let's talk a little bit , though . I've seen a lot of their presentations . They have these algorithms , they have their own proprietary approach . I believe they actually make the trades themselves . I mean , the faculty advisor actually puts them in .

Vincent Intrieri 32:53

Tim Krause has done an outstanding job , too , with helping the kids manage the money . I mean he's done a great job .

Ralph Ford 33:01

And Tim . We can go on there . He worked in , I think , the Chicago market and he's had a lot of experience . But can you talk about are they beating the market ? If you look at it with your hard-eyed investor , how are they doing ?

Vincent Intrieri 33:14

I think they're doing pretty well . I mean sometimes they're doing pretty well . I mean , you know , sometimes they're below what they call their benchmark , but I think overall , you know they're . I think I looked at the numbers yesterday . I think it's probably over time , like 13 , 14% annualized return , which is pretty gosh darn good .

Ralph Ford 33:33

I think a lot of years they beat the benchmark .

Vincent Intrieri 33:35

Yeah .

Ralph Ford 33:35

It may not be by a tremendous amount , but they're able to do that . Yeah , they've done an outstanding job .

Vincent Intrieri 33:41

And they've learned it all through . Listen , I don't stick my nose in . Yeah , I feel like Tim is capable and competent to oversee this and he's done a great job . And to have someone like me , who's a pain in the butt , looking over your shoulder , I just think it would be counterproductive . So I don't . I watch it . If I have questions , I'll give Tim a call and say hey , what are we doing with this ? That the other thing . But he's done a fabulous job , so there's no reason for me to stick my two cents in but you've also .

Ralph Ford 34:19

We've been at it long enough to you . Like you said earlier , you've got to see these students . I I've seen some . They're out there in wall street . They've gone on to do great things yeah and I'm not sure we were placing as many students in these high financial positions 15 years ago .

Vincent Intrieri 34:33

I personally think that and I'm not super familiar with the way the University Park fund works they have a big fund also , but my understanding is that who gets to be involved in that at University Park is more the master's MBA program people and the undergrads . I don't think get as much exposure as the Penn State Behrend people get , and so I think that's invaluable from a Penn State Behrend perspective and should be a huge selling point for the business school here at Penn State Behrend .

Ralph Ford 35:12

It is . We talk about it all the time to incoming students , this idea of this open , open lab model where we want students solving real problems , not mock problems . As you pointed out , there's a huge difference .

Vincent Intrieri 35:24

So huge is the difference because these kids take this seriously . They know they don't want to screw things up so that future generations don't have this model available for them to use . So they take serious their responsibilities to make sure they're doing the work and coming up with sound , logical investment decisions . So I'm very proud of Tim and all the kids who have been involved in this , and it's a great thing for Penn State , Behrend .

Ralph Ford 35:58

Well , without your vision and generosity , we wouldn't have it .

Vincent Intrieri 36:02

Let me ask you this I'll give Margie a little credit . She's a pistol boy . She was there pushing , pushing , pushing when we first started talking about it , paul G and I and John , and she's good , she's good .

Ralph Ford 36:17

Margie was great . I learned so much from her and she still keeps in touch with us to this day . Yeah , no , she's great . Talk about persistence . Margie had yes ,

Penn State Barron Alumni Success

Ralph Ford 36:25

she does . Margie Taylor , we're talking about our former director of development , so let me ask you this what do you see ? You know what sets Penn State Behrend apart and our graduates that you see ?

Vincent Intrieri 36:34

Well , as you and I have spoken about many times , ralph , coming from Penn State Behrend , I'm sure an eerie , top-notch reputation , right Eerie . Everyone respects and knows what kind of students and what kind of work ethic comes out of this place . But go to Wall Street or you know somewhere else in the United States they look at , they get a resume . You know where to go Penn State Behrend , file number nine . So you guys , I think what comes out of that is the students here know they have to work two times as hard as anyone else .

Vincent Intrieri 37:22

Number one and number two they come out with a chip on their shoulder that my degree from Penn State Behrend is just as good as your degree from Harvard and I personally have proven that many times over the years being on Wall Street and hedge funds . That's what I dealt with . And Carl had an affinity for Ivy League graduates and I can't tell you how many of those Ivy League graduates crashed and burned . So I think those are the two things I think . Number one they get a great education here small group of faculty , faculty to student ratio , so they get firsthand knowledge from the professors . Number one so they get a great education here and the ability to leave here with a Penn State degree in my opinion is huge .

Ralph Ford 38:17

I think really well said , and there's so much that our public universities do , and you just stated it really well . Well , we're coming to the end of the program . Anything you want to add , I'll give you the floor .

Vincent Intrieri 38:28

No , it's been a pleasure being affiliated with you , Ralph . You're always so helpful and the school has been great to me , like I said , both from an educational perspective and from the perspective of trying to give back to the Erie community . I no longer live in Erie , I no longer have any family in Erie , but it's always a pleasure to come back to visit with you guys up here at Penn State Barrett .

Ralph Ford 38:57

Well , vince , as I said , we've known each other for a while and you and Joanne are really committed to Behrend and Erie , even though you're living in Miami Miami Florida that's great . I love visiting you there . But likewise it's a real honor and privilege to be able to work with smart people like you , and so we appreciate you being on the show . I'll just finish with you know you are listening to Behrend Talks . I am Dr Ralph Ford , chancellor of Penn State Behrend , and my guest today is Vincent Trieri . Vince is the CEO of VDA Capital and we're very proud of him as a distinguished Behrend graduate , 1984 accounting . Thanks again , vince .