John Train

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This page is about the investment advisor. "John Train" was also a pseudonym of Phil Ochs.

John Train, a New York-based investment advisor and author, was born in 1928 and attended Groton School and Harvard University. In 1953 Train co-founded and became the first managing editor of The Paris Review, whose publisher was Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan. The Paris Review won attention by publishing extended interviews with such noted authors as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.

In 1959 he founded the New York money management firm now known as Train, Babcock Advisors. He is chairman of the Montrose Group, investment advisors and tax accountants, and is a director of a number of emerging markets mutual funds. He is the founder and chairman of the Train Foundation, which funds the Civil Courage Prize.

John Train was the only child of the second marriage of Arthur Train, a district attorney in New York City and the author of the "Judge Tutt" stories that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in the 1930s and 1940s, to the delight of attorneys nationwide. A descendent of an old New England family, he is a cousin of Senator Claiborne Pell, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and of Russell E. Train, head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency under Richard Nixon and founding trustee and former chairman of the World Wildlife Fund. His half-siblings include diplomats, military officers and other officials.

Train received part-time appointments from Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton as a director of government agencies and entities dealing with Africa, Asia, and Central Europe.

Train has several decorations by the Italian government for his efforts on behalf of Florence in the wake of the disastrous flood there in the 1960s, and is an officer of the Order of St. John. In 1980, he helped to establish the Afghanistan Relief Committee (ARC) to provide humanitarian aid to the victims of the Soviet invasion; he served first as its treasurer and later as its president. ARC was headquartered in his law offices. According to RightWeb, an organization that monitors the activities of right-wing groups, "ARC was formed in response to the U.S. government policy of working through NGOs to carry out foreign policy goals that could not be conducted through normal channels."[1] When the ARC closed, he joined the board of the International Rescue Committee.

Train has written numerous columns in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, London's Financial Times, and other publications. Also, over 20 books, translated into 15 languages, including:

Money Masters of Our Time (HarperCollins)
Investing and Managing Trusts Under the New Prudent Investor Rule: A Guide for Trustees, Investment Advisors, & Lawyers (Harvard)
The Craft of Investing (HarperCollins)
The Midas Touch: The Strategies That Have Made Warren Buffett 'America's Preeminent Investor' (HarperCollins)
Dance of the Money Bees: A Professional Speaks Frankly on Investing (HarperCollins)
The Olive: Tree of Civilization (Scala)
The Orange: Golden Joy (MT Train Books)

A witty raconteur, he has also written a number of amusing little books dealing with his varied interests -- "Remarkable Names of Real People," "Remarkable Occurences", "Wit: The Best Things Ever Said", and others (mostly Harper Collins), all in the same format, which have proven to be perennially-popular stocking stuffers.

He is an advisor to the Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University (affiliated with the United Nations), and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

He has three daughters, one of whom became an active member of his firm.