Do you have money in the Strong Value Fund?  If so, it is being managed by
a portfolio manager who is blind.  Read the profile of this extraordinary
woman below.

kelly







USA Today

   Page 1B

'Blindness isn't an obstacle' Money manager lets nothing stand in her way to
success

   By Adam Shell
   USA TODAY

   NEW YORK -- Laura Sloate still remembers the sting of rejection, the
   mean-spirited words, the blatant discrimination.

   While interviewing for her first job as a securities analyst in the
   late '60s -- armed only with youthful enthusiasm and a master's degree
   in history -- a research chief at a brokerage firm basically told her
   to forget about a career on Wall Street. ''He said, 'You have three
   things against you: You're a woman; you can't see; and you're
   inexperienced,' '' Sloate recalls.

   She proved him wrong. Today, she manages a $405 million stock
   portfolio even though she can't read a stock chart, scan a spreadsheet
   or view a hot new product. Sloate, 55, has been blind since detached
   retinas robbed her of her sight at age 6.

   The handicap hasn't stopped the determined Sloate from succeeding in
   the sighted world. She heads Sloate Weisman Murray & Co., an
   investment firm she co-founded in 1974. She also manages the Strong
   Value fund, which gained 13% last year despite the stock market's
   worst performance in a decade.

   Most blind people only dream of Sloate's success. Of the estimated 1.3
   million Americans 22 to 50 who are legally blind, about half are
   unemployed, says the American Foundation for the Blind. And one in
   three blind people 18 to 64 who do work earn less than $20,000 a year.

   Still, the fiercely competitive Sloate says sight isn't an issue.
   ''Blindness isn't an obstacle,'' says Sloate, who has worked on Wall
   Street since 1968. ''It just forces you to do things differently.''

   Like most on Wall Street, information is Sloate's lifeblood. ''I'm an
   information junkie,'' she says. ''If I went cold turkey, I'd be in
   worse shape than a three-pack-a-day smoker without a cigarette.'' The
   trick -- and the key to success -- is getting data into her head.

   She spends her entire day doing just that. ''My full knowledge input
   is through my ears,'' she says.

   Ultimate in multi-tasking

   It is 10 a.m. and the trading day is in full swing. While her guide
   dog, an 8-year-old German shepherd named Quartz, naps at her feet,
   Sloate is doing what seems like 10 things at once:

   * Listening to breaking business news that spills out of her PC's
   speakers at 320 words per minute.

   * Checking stock quotes. She hits the F3 key on her PC and punches in
   the symbol C. A robotic voice responds with a quote for Citigroup, her
   top holding: ''C . . . Bid . . . 50 . . . Point . . . 5265 . . . End .
   . . Ask . . . 50 . . . Point . . . 750 . . . End.'' Head trader
   Michael Adamson serves as a human stock ticker, updating Sloate via
   speakerphone.

   * Reading e-mail. She double clicks on a message from a Wall Street
   analyst dissecting Citigroup's earnings report released before the
   bell. The computer reads the e-mail's content to her.

   ''Laura gets through inhuman amounts of information,'' says Chip
   Rewey, senior portfolio manager at Sloate's firm. Rewey sits directly
   across from his boss during the trading day, feeding her relevant
   tidbits from brokerage reports and trade magazines.

   Sloate retains everything. ''She has the equivalent of a photographic
   memory,'' says Neil Weisman, who co-founded the firm with Sloate and
   left in 1986 to start his own hedge fund.

   Not being able to see forces her to rely heavily on technology -- and
   other people -- to get things done. Friends and colleagues often serve
   as her eyes. ''Maybe I can't tell whether the Gap's fashions are
   great, but I know enough people who do,'' Sloate says. If she needs to
   analyze a chart or spreadsheet, she'll ask a trusted business
   associate for help.

   Sloate doesn't feel sorry for herself or make excuses, but she says
   being blind often frustrates her. ''Sometimes it's wanting to do
   something that I can't do alone, like riding a bike.''

   There are professional obstacles, too. The stigma associated with
   being blind tends to close doors. If she were shopping for a new job,
   she suspects prospective employers would be reluctant despite her
   track record.

   Prospecting for new investors is also tougher. Sloate says many just
   aren't comfortable handing their money to a blind person. So she
   doesn't go out of her way to tell people on the phone about her
   disability. ''When I show up with a dog they are at best skeptical,''
   she says. ''But that wears off when they engage me in conversation and
   figure out I'm not a total idiot.''

   In fact, Dick Strong, founder of Strong Funds, admits that he talked
   to Sloate for 2 years on the phone and ''didn't know she was blind.''

   Co-workers and former colleagues describe her as fair, yet tough.
   ''Some people like criticism to be delivered with a bouquet of
   flowers; you will not get that from Laura,'' says Donna Leone, the
   firm's chief operating officer who was hired 20 years ago as Sloate's
   personal assistant. Weisman, her former partner, says Sloate holds
   herself to the same high standards. ''She's very tough on herself;
   she's her own worst critic.''

   Always prepared

   Sloate is described as loyal, caring and generous. Co-workers say
   she's a wonderful teacher, inviting members of her firm to dinner
   where she'll tell them what they're doing well and, of course, how
   they need to improve.

   She dotes over her dog, Quartz, like a loving parent. One evening long
   after the market closed, she plopped Quartz's tin dog dish on her desk
   and prepared dinner: low-fat cottage cheese mixed with dry dog food.
   Sloate says when Quartz underwent back surgery recently, she was
   ''traumatized.''

   Sloate likes being prepared. When a potential client leaves a phone
   message, for instance, she'll quickly research who they are, where
   they work, and if they're on any corporate boards. When going
   somewhere for the first time, she checks which side of the street the
   building is on and where the entrances are. ''She likes to be in
   control,'' Weisman says.

   When it comes to investing, Sloate looks for quality companies selling
   at cheap prices. But she won't buy a stock just because it's cheap: A
   catalyst, such as rebounding earnings, new management or a
   restructuring, must be in place. Toys R Us is a perfect example.
   Sloate recently started buying the stock on the belief that business
   would improve in the wake of the death or near demise of dot-com
   retailers, such as eToys.

   3:45 a.m. wake-up call

   Keeping up with Wall Street's best isn't easy. Sloate is a workhorse
   who sleeps less than four hours a night.

   Her day starts at 3:45 a.m. The minute she gets up she ''flips on''
   the paper. Picking up the phone, she dials a number and keys in a
   six-digit access code. When the call connects, she gets a line-by-line
   account of stories published by top national newspapers. She feeds and
   grooms Quartz while ''reading.'' It's common for Sloate to leave
   employees voice mail at 4 a.m.

   Working out comes next. ''It's the way I get my stress relief,'' she
   says. By 5:30 a.m. she's climbing up and down 75 flights of stairs in
   her Manhattan apartment building. A personal trainer arrives at 6 a.m.
   to spot her during her workout with weights. The fit 5-foot-6,
   110-pound Sloate bench-presses 60 pounds 60 times -- in three
   consecutive supersets. She arrives at her Park Avenue office by 8:30
   a.m.

   Her day extends well beyond trading hours, too. It's 6:45 on a
   Thursday night in early January and Sloate is still hard at work. As
   usual, she's doing two things at once. ''I get bored fast,'' she says.
   It's not unusual for her to have two people reading newspaper and
   magazine articles to her simultaneously.

   This night, Tracey Paleo, an actress, is reading Sloate stories from
   The Financial Times. At the same time, Rewey is reading her breaking
   news from the Internet.

   Sloate ''reads'' in several ways. On weekends, she scans some 300
   pages of magazine articles and other print materials into her PC,
   which converts it into voice. Software also lets her read Internet
   articles.

   Then, of course, there are the real-life readers like Paleo. The pay
   for the aspiring actresses and university students Sloate hires to
   read: $8.50 to $10 an hour. Hidden away in a corner office that
   doubles as a makeshift library, the readers can be spotted reading
   books and articles out loud into tape recorders.

   Managing money and analyzing stocks is the best job in the world, says
   Sloate, who also finds time to teach a securities analysis course at
   Columbia University. But her true passion is opera. She has attended
   about 1,000 performances, mostly at New York's Metropolitan Opera,
   where she's a board member.

   ''The opera is very civilized,'' she says. And rock or rap? ''It's
   just noise. My ears are very sensitive.''

   A night at the opera

   One night last month, a trip to a performance of Giuseppe Verdi's La
   Traviata at the Met illustrated Sloate's organizational skills.

   Because of long work hours, Sloate typically doesn't arrive at the
   opera house until the start of the second act. Prior to the season,
   she requests a timetable from the Met that lists when all the acts
   begin and end. ''The joke at the opera is I'm an expert on the second
   and third acts,'' she quips.

   On this night, Sloate leaves her Park Avenue office at 8:15 p.m.
   sharp. Her driver, Michael Piniero, zooms uptown in a van. Dinner is
   served in the back seat. Sloate dines on popcorn and coffee.

   Arriving at the Met around 8:40 p.m., a few minutes too early, Piniero
   waits patiently on a nearby street. At 8:45 p.m., Sloate gives the
   word, and Piniero drives into the parking garage for the drop-off.

   Once inside, Sloate, with Quartz at her side, takes charge. ''Go up
   the stairs. Walk to the left of the bar. The doors to the orchestra
   are straight ahead. We're in Row D.'' The lights dim just after Sloate
   sits down. The curtain rises and the crowd applauds before a note is
   sung. Sloate says the audience must like the scenery. ''New Yorkers
   are very vocal about what they like and don't like. I've heard them
   boo the scenery,'' she says.

   Sloate, who has never married, has two brothers and grew up in
   Brooklyn. She spent much of her childhood at home, where her mom,
   Elsie, now 94, would read to her. Her eye troubles kept her out of
   school until 14, her freshman year in high school. ''I had a difficult
   time,'' Sloate says of her socialization problems at school.

   Her interest in stocks began when she was 10. Her dad, Kelly, who was
   an investor, would call her in on New Year's Eve to calculate the
   value of his portfolio. She says she'd do the calculations in her head
   faster than he could with a pad and pencil.

   She's still good with numbers, Rewey says. When Sloate gets the bill
   at a restaurant -- and she eats out every night -- Rewey says he'll
   read her the price of every item, and she is able to calculate the
   total, including tax and tip, to the penny in her head.

   She landed her first job in 1968 with a tiny mutual fund that went out
   of business 4 months later. She then landed a job as an analyst at a
   small firm where she earned $200 a week, $140 of which she paid to a
   secretary she hired to read for her. In 1972, she landed a job as an
   analyst at Burnham & Co.

   ''Laura is in love with the business and committed to it, sadly,
   without a hell of a lot of other distractions,'' says author Peter
   Tanous, who wrote a chapter about Sloate in his book, Investment
   Gurus.

   Sloate herself admits that she's so devoted to and energized by her
   job that retirement is out of the question. ''I don't enjoy being away
   from the business,'' she says. ''I could have retired a long time
   ago."


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