CBOE Origin Remembrances: David Lucterhand

By Lawrence G. McMillan

I met David Lucterhand when we were both freshmen living on the same floor in the H-1 Dorm at Purdue in the fall of 1964. A few years later, on my first visit to the CBOE – in November of 1974 – I was on the small trading floor in the old smoking room. To my surprise, there was David Lucterhand, making markets on the CBOE. I called David this week to get some of his remembrances of the early days:

Q : So, David, how did you come to be a market maker on the CBOE?

I started out to be an engineer at Purdue in Astronautical Engineering (a part of Aeronautical Engineering). That lasted about three weeks when I realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do at all. It was especially disappointing because I had turned down an appointment to the Air Force Academy to go to Purdue. So, I went to see the Dean of Freshman Engineering for some counsel, and after talking for a while, he said that what I wanted “sounds like Political Science.” I agreed, and he admitted that Purdue was not well-known for that major but that they had recently beefed up the area, and he set up meetings with the Dean of History, whose department contained the Political Science major. Ultimately, I had a great experience and stayed to get a BA with a dual major in Modern European History (1815 +) and Political Science. While at Purdue, I read a book entitled The Pit, by Frank Norris. It is a novel (written in 1903) and relates a story quite similar to the movie “Trading Places.” After that, I was intrigued by the grain markets and wanted to get into the business. After working in several jobs and attending graduate school, I saved what I thought was enough money to buy a CBOT seat and I was ready to start the membership process. However, at about the same time, Russia suffered a poor wheat crop, and started buying up wheat all around the world. That had the residual effect of sending CBOT seat prices soaring and I could no longer afford one. Upon further research, I found out that a CBOT seat had the residual rights to trade on the CBOE. Furthermore, CBOE seats could be leased. By this time, it was late 1973, and I had a job that allowed me to be free in the afternoons.

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