Oil trader Gary Bauer relishes fast-paced career abroad

Is it possible to get winded during a conversation if you’re not the one speaking?

Yes, if you’re listening to the fast-talking, barely-pauses-for-a-breath oil trader Gary Bauer.

“I am pretty hyper,” he admitted.

“I would say the typical profile of a very successful commodity trader is very hyper,” Bauer said. “Definitely Type A.”

The Wichita native earned a finance degree at Kansas State University in the late 1970s. He decided he didn’t like his job opportunities so he took some more courses, this time in accounting.

Bauer noticed that a couple of his frat brothers, who had joined Koch Industries after school and then moved into commodity trading, were making great money. He was having lunch with one of them when he learned the friend was making close to a six-figure salary with something like a $250,000 annual bonus.

“That’s when I said, ‘I am in the wrong damn business,’” Bauer said. “I just looked at him … and I just said, ‘I’m smarter than you.’”

The money wasn’t all that lured Bauer to trading, he said.

“I just wanted to do something that was more creative. … I wanted to get into a high-intensity, energetic field, and that’s commodity trading.”

So Bauer applied to Koch, which he said wanted to hire him for something related to accounting.

“I said, ‘No, I want to get into trading.’”

Bauer said he gambled and took a job with Koch working on a Gulf Coast barge – “as low-life as you can get” – with about 10 kids who had just gotten out of school. He said he was told the odds of getting into trading were slim.

“Actually, slim to impossible.”

Within two years, he was heading Koch’s international waterborne operations. After a year and a half, he was promoted to trade feed stocks in Houston.

A short time later, he was asked to start Koch’s Singapore office. That was 1985.

Bauer, 60, has worked for a number of companies through the years and now is an owner in one, but most of his operations have remained in Singapore. He said he returns to Kansas twice a year to visit family and share stories with a derivatives class at K-State.

An early February trip brought Bauer home, and The Eagle caught up with him to chat about his career. Don’t be fooled by the Q&A, though. A reporter can try to interview Bauer, but he pretty much bulldozes a conversation where he’d like it to go.

You were making about $85,000 when you took the Koch barge operations job for $18,000 in 1982. Why’d you do it?

I just wanted the opportunity … to get into oil trading down the road.

What did your then-wife think of that decision?

At that time, my wife and I … were building a house in Kansas City, so when I drove up and told her I just took a job for $18,000, it didn’t go over too well.

Yet you think it was the right decision?

It was one of the greatest decisions. … You have to take a risk in the world these days.

How did you feel when Koch finally asked you to be a trader?

I went through the roof. … There is a God.

How did you start an office in Singapore, of all places, from scratch?

The one advantage that we did have is (most of the) world knew about Koch. … Koch had already been trading 20 or 30 years in the market. With Koch behind me, it was a great blessing.

Weren’t you a little lost?

English is the national language in Singapore, believe it or not. Me being the lazy American, I only speak English.

Weren’t you – or aren’t you – a little concerned about a country that’s known for its canings, including some for some seemingly minor infractions?

No. … Singapore is probably one of the greatest economic models of mankind. … Singapore is probably the most efficient, green, clean, safe, great, educated, entrepreneurial (places) for starting up new companies. … Honestly, I have not heard the word caning for three years until you brought it up. Do I agree with the caning system? Yeah, I do. … Is caning something that everybody thinks about and talks about? No. But it’s always there. It’s a great deterrent. … People do complain that there are too many rules in Singapore, but it’s fine. Any female can walk down any street at 3 in the morning and feel completely safe. It’s that safe. … I love it.

What were your challenges in starting an office there?

The difficulty was getting out and getting Koch’s name known in … the Middle East and the Asian Pacific Basin … basically selling the Koch name. Back then, oil trading was a dinosaur compared to what it is today. … It was a much harder marketplace to trade. … Just making Koch more of a well-known trading name (was) a tough job, but you know, it was fun.

You went on to establish a Singapore office for Goldman Sachs in 1988 before moving back to the States and opening an oil brokerage shop and then returning to Singapore and, eventually, having your own firm there. What’s that life like? What does it mean to be an oil trader?

I’m married to my phone. It’s not a phone. It’s phones. … I carry three. Because one I carry as a backup. … One is so I can talk on the phone … and the other phone I can look at e-mails and contracts as I discuss on the phone. … I’m up at 4:30 every morning. Every morning. I haven’t used an alarm clock in 40 years. … I’m normally in bed by 10 or 11 o’clock and constantly on the phone throughout the night. I’m on the phone or checking e-mails or checking the market. … There’s no down time. … It’s not good for your sex life. … If you want to trade with the big boys, there’s no downtime. It’s definitely a 24/7 type of job.

You do like the 30-to-33-hour flights to and from Singapore, though … the sleeping, the reading, the four or five movies you have time to watch.

The beauty of it is … no cellphones. I’m invisible. Nobody can call me.

Isn’t this a lonely life?

You sound like my sister. … There’s no time to be lonely.

And you do get to travel and socialize quite a bit through work, right?

This has given me the opportunity to travel the world, eat at great places. … Our business is very heavy in the entertainment. There’s a lot of going out to dinner and keeping relationships going.

You consider yourself lucky, don’t you?

I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have this opportunity and the career I’ve had. … Outside of family … I think international travel is the greatest luxury of life. … There’s a lot going on beyond the continental shore of the United States. … It’s a great way to widen your perspectives of other customs and other nationalities.

Then there’s the money …

It’s fantastic. The profitability and the salary and the bonuses are great.

Define great …

From $500,000 per year to 10 times that. … If you don’t make money, you don’t get paid squat.

The company you and some partners have owned since 2011 is Ocean Petroleum. What does it do?

We are an … Asia Pacific regional trading company. Everything we trade goes into China. We are buying crude oil and other feed stocks from all over the world. … Right now we have a total of 500,000 tons of crude oil heading to Singapore coming from the Middle East, (the) Mediterranean, South America (and) West Africa.

You tried retirement briefly in 1998. How’d that go?

I took about six months off. I thought I was going to retire. Next thing I know … after three months, you’re at the country club, it’s 3 in the afternoon, you’ve finished a round of golf, and you’re back in the men’s locker room, and you’ve finished your third martini. … I said to myself, this has got to stop. … I can’t do this for the rest of my life.

Plus, you missed your job?

I actually did miss the market. I absolutely love what I do. … It changes constantly. It changes every day. It changes every hour. It changes every five minutes. It just keeps my adrenalin pumped up.

How long can you keep this pace? Or how long will you allow yourself to?

For me, another four to five more years.

Other than incessant phone checks, anything keep you up at night?

That our operations operate very efficiently. Every time there’s a mix-up in operations, it’s money. I throw money around like you throw napkins on a dinner table.

It’s hard to imagine someone so loquacious having any secrets, but is there anything no one knows about you?

Back in the early days, I was tough. I was a tough trader. I was out to take your money. I think today, even though I’m hyper like this and hyperactive … I’ve calmed down a little bit. Oh, by the way, I’m the most impatient guy you’ve ever met in your life. … Don’t put that in there. I have become more patient. … I’ve come from a 10 down to a 7. OK, maybe a 61/2.

Your 10 must have been very scary.

People still say I’m very tense, but I’m not. I’m a nice guy.

This story was originally published March 4, 2015 at 9:55 AM with the headline "Oil trader Gary Bauer relishes fast-paced career abroad."