George Mairs: Resist urge to cut losses; keep investing

George Mairs III was born a year before the 1929 stock market crash. In 1931, his father launched what became the venerable Mairs and Power investment management firm of St. Paul. Mairs, now 80 and semiretired but still as sharp, calm and civil as ever, is a good fellow to talk with during turbulent times in the market.

He has helped make millionaires out of many investors in his Mairs & Power Growth Fund, which has consistently outperformed market indexes over the last 50 years with a buy-and-hold strategy of mostly Midwestern companies.

"This credit crisis and market downturn is far more pervasive than anything I've ever seen," said Mairs, who joined the firm in 1952 after graduation from Macalester College and a stint in the Army. "We've moved from a nation of investors to traders, it seems. But Baron Rothschild said the time to invest is when there is 'blood on the streets.' And it's pretty bad out there right now."

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