Ancient Puzzles
Some people like to go the beach on vacation; last summer Don Dana went back to the ice age.An executive vice president at Wells Fargo & Co., Mr. Dana spends his days acquiring and managing the San Francisco banking company's real estate investments, such as branches and office sites.
Dana holds a bone fragment from a mammoth during an archaeology trip. But his passion is the history of humanity. "I've always loved anthropology and paleontology, but there's no money in it," he said. "Being an anthropologist was just not something that was a possibility."
Instead, Mr. Dana, 58, who joined Wells in 1980, has spent his career in banking and real estate and pursuing adventure in his spare time. Last summer he led an expedition to investigate whether ancient man could have crossed the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska by boat.
It's an important question. Scholars have long been convinced that people made the crossing on foot during the last ice age, about 10,000 to 15,000 years ago when lower sea levels exposed a land bridge between Asia and North America. Showing that a sea crossing was possible would challenge the conventional wisdom, and possibly force researchers to reevaluate their ideas about how, and when, humans migrated to the Americas.
Mr. Dana began planning the venture years ago, and in 2004 he found a group of indigenous Chukchi tribesmen in Siberia who were willing to build a skin boat, using techniques that date from the ice age. Their 30-foot boat used flexible larch and pine for the frame and the skins of two adult female walruses held together with sealskin straps.
The Beluga, as it was christened, set off July 31. For four days the expedition headed south along the Russian coast while the Chukchi crew grew accustomed to handling the vessel in some of the world's most dangerous waters. Mr. Dana accompanied them in a safety vessel — a modern one, with an engine.
But a problem with the support boat's motor prompted Mr. Dana to call off the ocean crossing, though he said that several days at sea had helped demonstrate that ancient humans could have ventured to Alaska by boat. "We accomplished what we wanted to do," Mr. Dana said, though he is considering another attempt next year.
The Bering Strait adventure was by no means Mr. Dana's first. In the past decade he has participated in archaeological digs in Guatemala, Spain, and Alaska; studied the tracking and hunting skills of Hadza tribesmen in Tanzania; and collected field data on the feeding habits of lemurs in Madagascar. This July he is off to Ethiopia to look for fossils. (He schedules all of these activities using his standard Wells Fargo vacation time.)
He also belongs to scientific groups, including the prestigious Explorers Club in New York, and is the chairman of Earthwatch Institute's science committee, helping to match volunteers with researchers who need help on expeditions. This post has helped Mr. Dana himself get involved; the Beluga project was noteworthy because he came up with the idea and organized the expedition.
The common thread of his trips has been understanding primitive human cultures, a love that dates from his youth when he was fascinated by the work of the famous anthropologist Louis Leakey, who discovered human remains in Africa that were millions of years old. "The discovery rocked the scientific world," Mr. Dana said, "and it captivated me."
Free Agent
Frank Barkocy is job hunting for the first time in nearly a decade.The veteran industry observer has been the director of research at Keefe Managers Inc. since March 1999, but this month the New York hedge fund announced plans to liquidate. The winding down is expected to be complete by June 30.
"Everybody is going their separate ways," Mr. Barkocy said in an interview.
Keefe Managers' senior partners — John Lyons and William Kearns Jr. — tried to sell the firm and talked to several potential buyers before opting to liquidate, he said. The firm was founded in May 1991 by Harry Keefe Jr., who died in 2002.
Mr. Barkocy logged 25 years at Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. and managed its financial institutions research group. He then spent five years at Advest Inc. and another three at Josephthal & Co. He has made Institutional Investor's All-American Research Team nine times.
He said he is talking to prospective employers and hopes to decide on his future in a few weeks.
At 62 he said he is not considering retirement. "My preference is to continue with what I'm doing now … to stay on the buy side. I feel as though I have paid my dues on the sell side over the years."
From Lehman to Citi
A few investment bankers have joined Citigroup Inc. to develop a life sciences practice in the United States.Citi hired Matthew P. Young from Lehman Brothers to lead the group. An internal memo circulated this week said Michael Kelly and Tran Nguyen also moved with Mr. Young from Lehman to Citi as vice presidents.
All three will be based on the West Coast.
Leon Kalvaria, Citi's global head of consumer and health-care investment banking, wrote in a memo Tuesday that the hirings are "a key step" to building a life sciences business and "increasing our presence on the West Coast."
Mr. Young focused on biotechnology and specialty pharmaceutical companies at Lehman. He aided 10 deals last year, including Amgen Inc.'s $5 billion convertible offering and Diagnostic Products Corp.'s $2 billion sale to Siemens AG.
Before Mr. Young's four years at Lehman, he worked 10 years at Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.
