FogHorn January 26, 2017 - SHOP TALKS - Christine Quinn and Warren Barmore

The life that she leads is a product of generations of adventuresome ancestors. Her twin sister is raising a family outside of Heidelberg, Germany. Her father and her grandfather used to share secrets in German. Christine is the collector of stories and the custodian of family journals. For example her great-grandmother kept a journal describing her great-grandfather serving in the postwar German reconstruction. Her father's father was raised in Harlem, Netherlands. He was number 9 of 10 and immigrated to Indonesia to pursue a career in the spice trade. While there he got employment with American Harvester in the Philippines. In the Philippines he married her paternal grandmother who was Swiss, raised in northern Italy, of English and Filipino heritage and who had immigrated to Manila. Her paternal great-grandmother's father was an immigrant from the Channel Islands. Residing in the Philippines during World War II meant that her father spent the first part of his life in the Santo Tomas Prison Camp. (At this point we need to cross reference the Joy Enriquez shop talk referencing Santo Tomas as the educational institution she attended).  After the war her father ended up in the United States for college and then in the Marines.

 

Christine describes her mother as an All-American girl, 5'10", blonde and blue-eyed with a family history from Sweden and Scotland. Her grandfather was the city manager in Bozeman, Wyoming. Her mother's grandparents lived on the opposite side of Montana. Her mother's father was also a Marine who was stationed at Pearl Harbor during the bombing.

 

Christine's mother's family can be found in France, North Carolina, Washington and South Dakota. She has cousins in the Philippines, Austria, Canada, Australia, etc. She keeps up with everyone by Facebook.

 

Christine concluded, that despite the geographical differences, when all is said and done we are "more alike than different".

 

 

 

Warren began his shop talk by suggesting that when it comes to public speaking he likes to hide behind the podium. Perhaps it was the receptive audience, but Warren certainly didn't demonstrate any reticence to standing up in front of our crowd. Warren gave his last shop talk 15 years ago. That must've been more stressful because he remembered telling us then about how being a bank manager was a lot like being a firefighter. Warren is no longer a bank manager but now he provides financial services through Edward Jones. Warren is a middle son whose father Don met his mother while a student at San Jose State. (Your reporter's notes contain a cryptic entry about a wagon train. Perhaps his father's family had come West on a wagon train. I'm not sure.) In any event, Warren is the product of a blended marriage, his father is a Heinz 57 Western European mix and his mother is Chinese. His paternal grandmother was named Johnson and she was one of 13 siblings who immigrated from Europe. His maternal grandfather was Don Mortensen. Grandmother subsequently married a Barmore and thus his father's name was changed when he was adopted by the stepfather. On Warren's mother's side there is a significant family clan in the East Bay. His maternal grandfather immigrated from China in 1911 to the United States leaving behind siblings. Warren's mother was recently contacted by Facebook by her father's nephew who was seeking assistance regarding squatters on ancestral land in China.

 

Warren was born in San Francisco in the early 60's and his family moved to the coast to get away from the smog. Growing up on the coast he was one of those locals who hated the tourists. He played Little League and swam with the AAU  Cabrillo Clippers. In high school he was a swimmer, a cross-country runner, a wrestler and a football player. He got a job as a dishwasher at the Cypress House (where Flying Fish Grill is now), but after he was hired and before he started the owner died and so he went to work for the Shorebird Restaurant (now the Half Moon Bay Brewery) where he worked his way up the ranks to become a waiter. He attended Chico State (once ranked as a preeminent party school) where he drank a lot of free beer. He worked at a ski resort. He majored in Recreation and Park Management. After college he got an internship at the San Francisco Hilton Convention Center. Perhaps because of his restaurant experience, or maybe because of his collegiate alcohol contacts or, more likely, because of his name, they assigned him to the beverage department.

 

Eventually he figured out that finance is where the money is. He got an insurance license and went to work for Household Finance where he handled loans and insurance. He then moved into banking and was hired by Wells Fargo where he met a teller named Betty. Betty sang in a Christian band and enticed him to a youth retreat and with "faith in common" one thing led to another and they were married. With Wells Fargo Bank, Warren moved from San Francisco to Santa Rosa to Petaluma and when his hometown came available, he applied and became the manager of the Half Moon Bay Wells Fargo. That lasted for 8 1/2 years until in 2011 when he took over the Edward Jones office on Main Street.

 

In July 1995 Warren and his wife decided to start a family. They had daughters in 96, 98, 2000 followed by two more. The closest that Warren ever got to having a son occurred when he named his third daughter "Grayson". Warren describes his hobbies as his wife, his daughters and then himself. He's an outdoorsman who loves cooking. He and his family are members of Mariners Church where he might be described as a "water into beer Christian".

 

Warren concluded his presentation with a brief summary of the "rules of the road" that they follow at Edward Jones. Your reporter saved himself from a cramped hand by grabbing the handout that listed those rules. Unfortunately, he then lost it, or maybe the dog ate it or, more likely, some reprobate stole it. Some of those rules included understanding risk, diversification, quality of investments, investing for the long term and a couple of other things. Warren pointed out to us that there was an important recent change in the rules that govern the provision of financial services having to do with the fiduciary standard of care. So it's really important that you make sure that your financial services provider is complying with the "fiduciary standard of care". The end.