My name is Marcus Holzschuh, and I am the latest intern at APCM Wealth Management for Individuals. I’m a lifelong Alaskan with a passion for traveling, music, hockey, and economics. That last one may sound strange. While most people think of stuffy old men in drab suits sitting around reading charts and legalese nonsense when they think of economics, I see it as a way to understand the world.
Like many Alaskans, my first passion was lacing up my skates and playing hockey all winter long. In fact, I started playing hockey when I was about 2 years old. Well, it’s not really hockey when you’re that young, it’s more like practicing falling and getting back up. Playing hockey is all I wanted to do until I was about 16 years old. That’s how old I was when the Great Recession happened, and I learned a lot about finance and economics. At least, I thought I did. I opened my first brokerage account and plunged headlong into the market with my pittance of life’s savings and started buying stocks at cut-rate prices. It felt great. Until about a week later when the market crashed further, and I lost most of my money.
My real journey into financial literacy began at the University of Alaska Anchorage. I learned about interest rates and the Fed, supply and demand, and macro and microeconomics. Most importantly I learned a little bit about what it actually means to invest. You see, what I was doing with my savings at age 16 wasn’t investing, it was speculation at best, and more accurately it was just pure gambling. Losing most of your money buying stocks you know nothing about when you’re 16 is a great lesson. I now understand the value of a properly diversified portfolio and the importance of time in the market, not timing the market. Lessons that have only been reinforced since working here.
After college, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, and worked in a variety of professions. I was an emergency oil spill response technician in the Chukchi Sea during the Shell project, a laborer for an asphalt company, a warehouser for my parents’ small business, and even sold tires at a local tire shop. During breaks in those jobs, I traveled the world, visiting Europe, South America, and Australia. It was a truly wonderful time in my life, and I certainly changed a bit as a person. Traveling showed me how interconnected the world is. It’s not just numbers on a screen, but a farmer in South America sending fruit and livestock to supermarkets in America that you and I buy from. It’s a young Austrian’s augmented reality app he was working on in Vienna that now your friends use back home in Alaska.
It’s important to learn to budget and save to continue to enjoy experiences like traveling, so I am really excited to expand upon my base level of understanding of the financial markets and advising while working with the advisory teams here. It was surely a winding road to get to where I am today. I am unsure of what the next step may be, but I am eager to find out with the help of my new colleagues. If you happen to stop by the office and see me, be sure to say hi!
Marcus Holzschuh
Fall Intern 2022
