Globally
Involved Coloradans Shed Provincial Stereotype
Below are excerpts from the article.
The Denver Post - Sunday
Supplement -
Empire Magazine, March 9, 1997
by Jim Carrier
From time to time I've thought of Denver as
provincial - isolated from and unconcerned with, changes that lap at distant shores. To
act locally and ignore the rest sums up the attitude.
But four Coloradans recently crossed my
path who rewrite an old cliché. After traveling abroad they began working on
problems the rest of us only read about. On any given day you'll find them both
thinking and acting globally. . .
The third person, financial adviser
Virginia Moran from Golden, came to my attention after a column on cutting exotic woods in
rain forests. Her solution was to invest in a teak tree farm.
A long love affair with Costa Rica led her
to Tropical American Tree Farms, a 2,000-acre venture on the Pacific coast. The area
had been clearcut of native wood. But founders Sherry and Steve Brunner of Ohio
learned that teak could be grown on the thin soil remaining.
Here's how it works. You invest in
100 trees at a cost of $26.50 per tree. After eight years the 10-inch-thick trees
are thinned. The harvest pays back the investment. Then your crop is
harvested every four years. After 25 years the last of your trees will be cut.
The demand for teak's beauty and
water-shedding is growing, but as a crop "it doesn't take 500 years to grow like
redwood," said Moran, who concentrates on socially screened investments.
"It's win-win. I'd like to do something for Costa Rica. It provides very
good jobs. It's wonderful for the environment. Teak have 12- to 14-inch
leaves, and they put out a lot of oxygen. I can make a tax-deductible trip to see my
investment. They have a little bed and breakfast with thatched roof and an open-air
restaurant.
"The return is so phenomenal I hate to
mention it for fear of scaring people away. It's probably 200 percent over time.
It's not a licensed security. I simply tell people about it. The
biggest risk is the first eight years. After that the roots develop. I intend
to buy more. It's the niftiest investment that I have ever found." For more
information contact Steve &
Sherry Brunner, Tropical American Tree Farms,
trees@tatf.com
or mail them at c/o AAA Express Mail (SJO), 1641 N.W. 79th
Ave., Miami, FL 33126; USA telephone: (800) 788-4918, or 011-506-291-0713: . . . or Virginia Moran at 303-215-1993. |
