Walter Adelbert Marting – 50th Reunion Essay

Walter Adelbert Marting

11055 Vincent Lane

Reno, Nevada 89511

dmarting@hcell.com

775-742-4911

Spouse(s): Marja (1992)

Child(ren): Isabelle & Walter III, twins (1999)

Grandchild(ren): Isla Maritxu Lucia Moberly (2018)

Education: Harvard Business School ’75

National Service: USN, Jan ’70, May ’73

Career: MIning Executive Fortune 500 firm, Venture Investor

Avocations: Golf, reading, training

College: Jonathan Edwards

Yale Experience and Afterward

At Yale, it started for me with Carmen Cozza, with his incantation in my freshman year: “If you are sad, work; if you are discouraged, work; if you are lost, work,” et cetera, and it works.

DKE was a big part of life on campus for me and I think most everyone who was part of the fraternity. Glorious times during the football weekends. I was invited to the White House by 43 and on greeting me, he tried out the secret handshake, which I of course butchered. Wood was there, too.

The “29-29” movie has dogged me, and the others, too, I’m sure, ever since its release. Not necessarily negatively but it kind of puts you in a certain place and time forever.

I suppose the SEALs (Team 2) were a big influence, but in 1970 no one had heard of them. I got into the teams following the recommendation of a Yale friend from Cleveland, John Wilbur Jr., ’64. He was a plank owner and recommended the program. So, I volunteered. It was for me the best way to spend three and a half years in the military during Vietnam. No thoughts of avoiding the draft. I loved it and still watch most of the movies about the teams now. I actually volunteered to reenlist during Iraqi Freedom.

My father, Yale ’34, and his career in mining opened some doors that resulted in my moving to Paris in 1982, where I was CFO of Amax Europe. It was a great experience and inexpensive—well before the euro. My mother, who’ll be 106 around the time of the reunion next year, hopefully, still asks me about my Yale friends, particularly Brian whose mother she was very close to.

I returned to the USA after Paris and started doing my own investing—gold, avionics systems, biotech, and lately addiction treatments.

But lest it appears that I am doing something overly charitable now, my partners and I also opened the first legal marijuana dispensary in Nevada. Not the same product at all that was smoked in our time. I’m not a consumer, though.

Marja and I live with our twins, Del and Isabelle, in Reno. We just had a granddaughter, my stepdaughter’s, with a great name—Isla Maritxu Lucia; she’s part Basque.

Yale throughout this period was a fixture for me. Untarnishable, with eternal friendships never dimming. Nothing else I have ever found has provided that kind of steadfastness.

I guess I’ll finish with something I read just before writing this, from David Duchovny, who was at Yale, quoting Samuel Beckett: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Yale instills that kind of perseverance.