I Remember David D. Alger

David D. Alger was 57 and the executive vice president and chief financial officer of Fred Alger Management. He had graduated from Harvard with a major in History and then from the University of Michigan with a Master’s in Business Administration.

He and his brother Fred Alger built a successful investment firm through a record of strong investment performance and excellent client service. For much of the last decade, David Alger led the firm, managing over $15 billion in assets.

David Alger seemed to be known for stories and the lessons contained within them about the business world, and about life. A connoisseur of cheeseburgers and apple pie, it was not unusual for David to sit at his lunch table with young business executives and tell his stories, often beginning with the same line, “That reminds me of something.”

“I can see him chewing apple pie and telling these stories,” said Rob Lyon, who worked for Mr. Alger at Fred Alger Management in the 1980’s and remained close. One of Mr. Alger’s lunch lessons was that big companies cannot possibly grow as fast as little ones, and that problems in a company ‹ or a life ‹ can never fully be solved in one three-month reporting period. You have to look to the horizon, he would tell the young Turks.”

Fred Alger investment offices were located on the 93rd floor of 1 World Trade Center. In addition to his wife and brother, Mr. Alger is survived by a sister, Suzette Howard of Aiken, S.C.; and daughters Cristina de Marigny Alger of Cambridge, Mass.; and Roxanna Geffen of Manhattan.

I would have liked to have attended one of Mr. Alger’s famous Wall Street lunches and listened to a story or two.