Acknowledgments

I had many productive arguments and enjoyable times with my early partner, Chuck Callard. His enthusiasm for research was a magnet that attracted very smart people to work at Callard, Madden & Associates, as well as money manager clients willing to support basic research on valuation. Bob Hendricks played a vital role at Callard, Madden & Associates and later as managing partner of HOLT Value Associates. Bob kept everyone’s eyes on delivering research insights and developing practical tools for our institutional money manager clients. Marvin Lipson made significant contributions in the area of computer programming and database management. Rawley Thomas was a key researcher at HOLT and now leads PDDARI (Practitioner Demand Driven Academic Research Initiative), which is a unique research network sponsored by the Financial Management Association. Today, Tim Bixler of Credit Suisse HOLT ably orchestrates the continued development and marketing of the CFROI life-cycle framework.

In 1999, Chris Faber started up a money management subsidiary at HOLT that later became Ironbridge Capital Management, LP. Under Chris’s leadership, Ironbridge has developed a unique, disciplined process to implement the CFROI framework. The stellar long-term investment returns of Ironbridge funds demonstrate the practical value to investors of the concepts explained in Chapters 4 and 5. My younger son, Jeff, a fund manager at Ironbridge, and I have had many useful debates about the application of the CFROI framework. Sam Eddins, Director of Research at Ironbridge, made major contributions to the CFROI framework while a partner at HOLT.

My economist friends at George Mason University, Tyler Cowen, Dan Houser, and Alex Tabarrok, provided helpful criticism, as did Jack Cohen, Alexander McCobin, and Elliott Rubenstein. In addition, I made substantial improvements to every chapter due to detailed and insightful comments from Joe Bast, Tom Hillman, and Mike McConnell.

Sara Benson crafted the figures in the book and kept her sense of humor as I made endless revisions. Kevin Reher compiled historical company data. Donn DeMuro programmed the company track record displays and has assisted my research efforts for many years. Marie Murray, formerly a journalism professor, is a superb editor and significantly improved the writing in every chapter, plus in many other articles of mine over the past two decades.

Since the mid-1980s, Ernie Welker, formerly Director of Research and Education at the American Institute for Economic Research, has been my primary research colleague and critic. This book has benefited enormously from his expertise in economics, scientific writing, and the deeper issues of the knowing process discussed in Chapter 1.