Junius “Jay” Wenworth Peake was the model of a self-made man.
With only one year of college under his belt, Peake became a partner in a Wall Street brokerage firm by the age of 23 and 52 years later finished his career as a business-school professor in Greeley.
Peake, a professor emeritus at the University of Northern Colorado’s Monfort College of Business, died Friday due to deteriorating health conditions after several strokes. He was 80.
“He had passion, he had commitment, and he had stick-to-it-ness,” said his wife, Diane Ryerson-Peake.
A devoted career man, Peake retired from teaching five years ago.
“He started going downhill after he retired,” Ryerson-Peake said. “He didn’t have a passion.”
Born in New York City in 1932, Peake attended Syracuse University for one year, until his father’s death forced him to drop out.
In 1950, Peake began his career on Wall Street and soon moved into a partner position at Shields & Co.
“He was ahead of his time,” Ryerson-Peake said. “He was a Wall Street visionary.”
The “back-office crisis” of the late ’60s and early ’70s — when high volumes of trades overwhelmed the ability of brokerage firms to process them — inspired some of Peake’s key reform ideas.
“One of his visions was to make the stock market more transparent,” Ryerson-Peake said.
Peake testified before Congress several times leading up to the 1975 amendments of the Securities Exchange Act. His ideas were not welcomed by everyone.
“He got a lot of pushbacks from the vested interests on Wall Street,” said his son, Andy Peake. “A lot of his ideas are in use today. Unfortunately, he didn’t get patents for them or credit, but it was his pushing that really helped.”
One of his key contributions was the 1983 implementation of the International Futures Exchange, which was the first automated futures exchange in the world. He also did international finance consulting.
“He was always looking for the little guy, which is why he was looking at making better markets for the customers,” Andy Peake said.
In 1993, William Duff, dean at the Monfort College of Business, brought Peake to UNC as the first faculty member of the new executive-professors program.
“Jay did everything we wanted him to do,” Duff said. “He brought visibility to the Monfort College of Business.”
Peake brought more than prestige to the campus; he brought compassion for his students.
“He was passionate about helping young people in trouble,” Ryerson-Peake said. “He would go to the mat for whoever it was.”
Peake was the type of guy who chose his path and pursued it with conviction.
“There was a certain amount of controversy with Jay,” Duff said. “He shook up the campus.”
“The closer you were to Jay, the less that was an issue,” he said. “It was just Jay.”
Kristen Leigh Painter:303-954-1638 or kpainter@denverpost.com
