Our July 10 speaker was Russell H. Walters, a principal at the recently formed Bluestone Commercial Capital, LLC. Russ was educated as a mechanical engineer at Bucknell University (BS) and The Johns Hopkins University (MS). Russ’ early professional years were with the Siemens Company and later with Siemens/Moore. He ultimately joined the Oliver Sprinkler Company and grew the business over the next sixteen years to revenues of over ten million dollars and thirty-five employees. After selling the business, he began investing with Bluestone Commercial Capital. The focus of Bluestone is founding, growing, and managing small and medium sized businesses. His positive experience with both the return on his investments and the mission of the company led him to becoming a principal of Bluestone in 2019. He now educates investors about the investment opportunities in this niche market.
Accompanying Russ was Matthew J. Zonies, a licensed attorney with seven years of experience in private law practice and financial analytics. He has represented private lenders, commercial real estate developers and high net worth families in connection with commercial real estate transactions, tax planning and day-to-day legal counsel. Prior lending experience includes serving as general counsel to a private bridge lender and having responsibility over creation of loan documents, business development, title examination, investor relations and conducting loan closings. Matthew is also a principal at Bluestone.
Every year the Financial Club attempts to have our May meeting coincide with the Las Vegas Money Show. This year, our speaker was Jack Ablin of Cresset Capital Management. While Cresset manages money for people with 10 million or more to invest, he still had plenty of information on investing in the Stock Market for those of us with more modest portfolios. Because of our proximity to Las Vegas, our club is often able to attract some of the most prestigious people in the industry to come here to speak. Jack, shown with Financial Club President, Lennette Horton, is only one of those excellent choices.
Even if you don’t “play” the market, our club offers valuable financial information for you. The recent Suddenly Single seminar facilitated by club members Dave Weil and Joy Rose and attended by over 40 of our club members, was extremely well received. One participant commented, “I joined the Financial Club just so I could attend the seminar and I am so glad I made that decision.”