Green Greenbacks

Environment, economy and energy part of sophomore Evan Kontras' portfolio

September 29, 2009

Evan Kontras '12, an economics major from Columbus, Ohio, is making financial inroads at the college and beyond.

Evan Kontras ’12 is wasting no time in leaving his financial footprint at Dickinson College.

Last semester as a first-year student, Kontras, competing with 50 graduate and undergraduate students, presented a mock portfolio of sustainable investments at Cornell University’s Entrepreneurship@Cornell program. The Columbus, Ohio, resident’s presentation received an honorable mention from the SustaInvest Advisory Council.

Kontras is his class treasurer and a student senator on the planning and budget committee. He also is a member of the Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) discussion group, and he designed an SRI brochure for prospective students.

An economics major, Kontras cut his summer short, arriving on campus Aug. 10 to begin work as an intern in the financial operations office, where Annette Smith Parker ’73, Dickinson’s vice president and treasurer, shares her insights about the complexities of the college endowment during a period of unprecedented global economic volatility.

“I've obtained a strong grasp of how our college’s endowment operates by completing many tasks for Ms. Parker,” Kontras said. “For instance, updating the financial operations ‘Investments’ Web site with current numbers and documents has allowed me not only to become proficient with our Web site management program, but also to examine and comprehensively understand financial information.”

On Oct. 1-4, Kontras is scheduled to join several Dickinson administrators and other student members of the SRI discussion group at the Responsible Endowments Coalition’s annual conference at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia.

Kontras is already looking ahead to next summer, when he hopes to land a job related to finance and investment.

“Evan is an incredibly insightful and self-motivated young man,” Parker said. “He arrived at Dickinson with his own investment portfolio and with ideas for the creation of an investment group and a plan for a green investment project. The latter took on the shape of an entry into SustaInvest. I think his participation in the Socially Responsible Investing discussion group was helpful to that process, but the initiative was all his. He’s a real spark plug of energy, which makes his presence in financial operations very helpful.”

Evan, she added, has “incredible energy and potential.”