Wannabe Warren

THOMAS GAYNER parlayed a stockbroker career into the top job at Virginia's $16 billion Markel Group, a specialty insurer with a penchant for investing in stocks and privately owned businesses. Meet Richmond's answer to the Oracle of Omaha.

- Bob Ivry

Thomas Gayner gets a kick out of telling the story. It was 1983. He had just graduated from the University of Virginia with a plan to return home to Salem, New Jersey, to run an accounting business with his father, Jack. But Jack died suddenly, and instead of heading north, Tom wound up at Davenport & Co., a Richmond stock brokerage. He hadn't been there long when he read an article about an investor from Omaha who was such an inspiration that Gayner wanted to share his excitement with his boss. "Hey, Joe," Gayner said, "have you heard of this guy, Warren Buf-fay?" "It's Buffett, you idiot," Joe replied, and tossed Gayner out of his office.

Forty years later, Gayner, 62, has built an impressive career by worshiping at the altar of Buffett. Though he still refers to himself as an idiot for not buying Berkshire Hathaway stock in 1984 when it was selling at $1,275 (it currently trades for $612,500), his study of Buffett led him, in 1986, to invest in a little-known family-owned property and casualty insurer called Markel. Gayner thought Markel could do for Richmond what Berkshire did for Omaha. Davenport helped underwrite Markel Group's $30 million 1986 IPO, and Gayner became pals with Steve Markel, the grandson of the company's founder. Steve, now chairman, embraced the unorthodox idea of using underwriting profits to invest in equity, via both publicly traded stocks and ownership stakes in private companies. Even today, most insurers are risk-averse and stick to the predictability of bonds.