Bill Whitlow -- Cooler Head Prevails At Northwest Helm Of Dain Bosworth

-- Name: Bill Whitlow

-- Age: 44

-- Position: Analyst

-- Quote: ``If I think I have any skill at all, one of the perks of the business is I can buy a stock I like and get it at a lower commission.''

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Forecasting the stock market can be daunting. But once you've ditched your jet in the drink, anything seems possible.

Bill Whitlow - William Whitlow Jr. - is much too modest to suggest those events are related. Still, it isn't far-fetched that a former Vietnam War pilot who could coolly ditch his plane into the ocean also could possess that special reserve necessary to predict the ups and downs of stocks.

``He just didn't get upset,'' said Dick Hubbard, senior vice president and treasurer at Safeco, where Whitlow worked more than a decade ago.

``He stayed cool,'' Hubbard said. ``He looked things over very carefully. He was a very serious guy, yet he didn't take himself too seriously. He didn't think he was God's gift to the analytic community.''

For the past seven years, Whitlow, 44, has researched stocks for the Dain Bosworth brokerage in Seattle and has become the region's most visible stock analyst. Corporate leaders must be wary, lest a negative comment from him sends their stock down.

Whitlow started as Dain Bosworth's only Northwest analyst. Now he directs two other analysts and associated staff for the Minneapolis-based company.

``I'm pretty satisfied,'' Whitlow said. ``I still like what I'm doing.''

Figuring out what he would do was the problem.

Born in Michigan, Whitlow came as a youngster with his family to the Garden Grove area of southern California. He attended Garden Grove High School, then decided to enroll at the University of Colorado, in part to get away from the seasonless climate.

Bill Whitlow Sr., an attorney, was not averse to having another professional - attorney or doctor - in the family.

So Whitlow dabbled in chemistry as an undergraduate. But upon graduation, in 1967, he wasn't ready to head for medical school, and the Vietnam War draft board was beckoning. So Whitlow joined the U.S. Navy to become a flier.

Whitlow piloted tankers, flying from aircraft carriers to fuel other airborne aircraft and to jam enemy radar.

On one return to the carrier, the landing parachute inadvertently popped out.

``I put the plane in the water,'' Whitlow said. ``We were in the water about 10 minutes. The three of us were rescued. The plane sank.''

In his unassuming manner, Whitlow might as easily have said, ``Microsoft is up a quarter today.''

After his Navy service, Whitlow landed in California's Bay Area, where his wife, Jeanne, was a Navy nurse. One of the legacies of Navy life was a mutual-fund investment.

Still uncertain about a career, Whitlow decided to return to school, where he obtained a master's in business administration.

``I still wasn't too crazy about living in California,'' Whitlow said. ``We looked at three places: Portland, Seattle and Denver. I had been stationed at Whidbey Island from May to November, 1969.'' The Whitlows chose Seattle.

Whitlow got in on the ground floor of an equipment-leasing company started by a unit of National Bank of Commerce (later Rainier, even later Security Pacific).

After 15 months, ``I just decided I didn't like that business. I wanted to be in the investment business.''

It was 1974, when you couldn't give stocks away and the only bull market was in unemployed investment analysts.

After months of searching, Whitlow caught on with Safeco, the insurance and financial-services giant. To invest billions in insurance premiums and mutual-fund cash, Safeco employs a large force of analysts.

``Safeco was and still may be the only company that will hire an analyst without experience,'' Whitlow said.

The plum promotion was to graduate from assessing stocks to making buy-and-sell decisions as a portfolio manager. However, Safeco's rigid investment conservatism, which served it well, prevented Whitlow from recommending some of the young growth companies he followed in transportation and technology.

After more than four years, Whitlow jumped to Seafirst Bank. His new boss, Robert Pyles, Seafirst vice president and manager of investment research, described the qualities he saw in Whitlow.

``His academic credentials were very strong,'' Pyles said. ``I could see he was a very intelligent guy, straightforward, a good thinker. What I was able to discern was he did very thorough work and had good investment judgment. He's also very easy to get along with.''

Whitlow started at Seafirst in 1980. By late 1982, questions arose about Seafirst's ability to survive poor loans, and its losses soon were reported to have reached $91 million.

Meanwhile, Whitlow learned from a newspaper article that Peter Glanville, Dain Bosworth's research director at the main office in Minneapolis, wanted to expand the company's Northwest presence by adding an analyst.

``The companies I enjoyed following most were the companies here,'' Whitlow said. ``I thought they were underfollowed.''

``I got so excited,'' he said. ``What Peter was looking for, I was looking for.''

Glanville said he heard from Whitlow and many others.

``He had just the right amount of background,'' Glanville said. ``It's a combination of things. He's very steady and reliable, very thorough, a person who really does his homework. He's very objective. He doesn't get carried away with what others tell him.''

Seven years later, Whitlow says it would take a hefty sum to lure him away, not just from Dain Bosworth but from Seattle. He and Jeanne live in the northeast part of the city, she doing occasional nursing supervisory work at Group Health. Son Scott is 12, daughter Kristina is 10.

Despite the time it takes to keep up with the investment world, Whitlow spends a good deal of time with the kids, swimming, following Little League and the like. The family recently acquired a cabin in Eastern Washington. For sheer pleasure, Whitlow said he enjoys home improvements, building shelves, cabinets and such.

Collecting information about a company helps determine whether to buy the company's stock. Whitlow is a modified graduate of the Graham and Dodd school of investing. They urged investors to buy value, often out-of-favor companies, and wait for the market to realize that value. Graham and Dodd techniques tend to overlook short-term prospects. A brokerage, Whitlow said, cannot.

An analytic novice can expect to earn perhaps $35,000. Although a few superstar analysts in New York might make $500,000, the majority more likely fall in the $65,000-to-$100,000 range. Some analysts decline to put some of that cash back into the same stocks they recommend.

Not Whitlow.

``I buy stocks I recommend,'' Whitlow said.

To him, it's important to put your money where your mouth is.

``If I think I have any skill at all, one of the perks of the business is I can buy a stock I like and get it at a lower commission.''

Picking stocks can be a risky business. So can owning them. But that's still safer than dropping your jet in the Pacific Ocean.

Profile appears weekly in the Business Monday section of The Seattle Times.