TCNJ

9 Prairie SPRING 2025 the fund's members with questions that force them to consider every angle of the decisions they're making. The inquiries might even seem unkind, Choi admits, modeled as they are on the questions that occur in industry- level fund meetings. But by facing them head-on, students learn to sharpen their pitches and meet the high standard expected of them. And, she says, "They learn to agree to disagree in a professional way." They also learn to face their mistakes and fix them, which is why Choi says, "Losing is way more import- ant than winning in this game." "This is a perfect place to fail," says finance major Sal Zotti '25, who was with the fund for a year. "We don't want to fail the fund, but I'd be happy to fail in the way I'm approaching an analysis or presentation now, rather than when I'm at my job." Zotti points to a pitch he worked on with Rummel for Lam Research Corp., a manufacturer of semiconductor equipment that they thought was worth more than its share price indi- cated. They overcomplicated their explanation of how they arrived at their valuation, faced stiff questioning, and saw the pitch vetoed. But, as Mayo and Choi would hope, they grew from the experience. "My next pitch after that, we knocked it out in one day because we focused on simplifying the story and simplifying the model," Zotti says. Zotti and his fellow fund members not only benefit from keen questions from their advisors but also from the support of a number of alumni who return each year to share insights from the field. For Cory Griffin '11, who now leads real asset valuation at Apollo Global Management, the fund trans- lated directly to the professional world of finance. "They're not doing some- thing like what I do," he says. "They are doing it." (The presence of the Bloomberg Terminal that initially attracted Rummel underscores that point: the real-time software is an essential tool for finance pros.) After a quarter-century in opera- tion, the fund is still delivering pivotal lessons and shaping the futures of its members. With a curated selection of 50-plus tickers in its portfolio, it often outperforms the S&P 500, a stock market index that serves as its bench- mark. And along the way, it's handed out more than $100,000 in scholar- ships to TCNJ students from the Ewing community. "It should go on forever," Mayo says. For Rummel, the experience is "unmatched" by anything else in his academic career, he says, and that's what brought him back this spring — one last chance to prepare himself for what lies ahead. "The class is so valu- able to my personal and professional development," he says, "that I'd have been doing myself a disservice if I hadn't taken it again." — Ben Seal BILL CARDONI Sal Zotti "Losing is way more important than winning in this game." — Professor Seung Hee Choi

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