Gary Ginter

Founder, and Chairman, VAST Power Systems
Gary Ginter is a serial entrepreneur who has helped lead and develop multiple organizations. Two were world leaders in the futures and stock options markets. Gary has invested all of the proceeds he received as a partner from the sale of those firms to finance VAST. Gary founded, led, and now chairs VAST Energy Solutions, LLC and its wholly owned subsidiary, VAST Power Systems, Inc.

Co-Founder, Chicago Research and Trading (CRT)
Gary was an early partner and helped lead Chicago Research and Trading Group, a world-class futures and options market-maker. After 17 years, “CRT was sold to NationsBank for $225 million cash plus other considerations. CRT had 750 employees, $250 million in capital and offices in cities around the world. It owned more than 150 memberships on 19 securities exchanges and traded approximately 75 options and futures contracts on interest rates, equity indexes, petroleum and foreign exchange, as well as other instruments. CRT Government Securities Ltd. was one of 38 primary dealers that reported to and traded U.S. government securities directly with the Federal Reserve.” Baltimore Sun Times

Managing Director, Globex
Gary served as the first Managing Director of Globex. It pioneered trading futures and futures options on a worldwide electronic exchange instead of using physical pits on trading floors. Globex was founded by the CME Group with the Chicago Board of Trade and MATIF, the French futures exchange in cooperation with Reuters as their global network provider. Globex totally disrupted the futures industry. Almost all the major commodity futures trading floors worldwide have closed, having been replaced by Globex. Today, over 90% of all trades in futures and futures options cleared via the CME Group, the largest commodity futures exchange in the world, are done through Globex.

Partner, Hull Trading
Gary was a partner at Hull Trading Group, Chicago which was sold to Goldman Sachs for $531 million. Ginter was offered a partnership in Goldman Sachs in that transaction. He declined in order to devote full-time to VAST Power Systems.

Founding Member, Efficient Capital Management
Gary was a founding member of Efficient Capital Management, LLC. ECM is a leading innovator in managed futures investment worldwide. It manages risk-adjusted returns and risk hedge overlays for $2.5 billion in portfolio exposure for large institutions, family offices, and high net worth individuals. ECM’s customer base is primarily large European institutions with significant North American participation as well. Gary serves as a member of the Executive Committee.

Co-Owner, Access Innovations, Inc.
Gary has been one of three owners of Access Innovations, Inc. (Aii) for 40 years, offering counsel and advice to the co-founders. Aii is the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application. Aii provides innovative content management solutions from workflow design to full implementation. Aii offers both services and software.
Aii’s Data Harmony software enables users to build and maintain all types of controlled vocabularies, create and capture metadata, and manage rule-based automated indexing. The software is XML-based, Unicode aware, written in platform-independent Java with local or remote client TCP/IP interface, and proven in production since 1998.

Non-profit Involvements
Gary was the Angel investor for many startups in communities of need worldwide, including rural Africa, Pakistan, Mexico, and Afghanistan as well as in inner city Chicago. He has served as Chairman of many non-profit organizations, several of which he helped found. He has served as a board member and briefly as Vice Chairman of InterVarsity, a Christian ministry to college students in the USA. He helped found and lead Paraclete Mission Group (https://www.paraclete.net). In 2024 Paraclete associates served 384 churches and organizations in 109 countries, working as counselors, consultants, and mentors, touching the lives of over 18,000 people.

Family and Church
Gary has been married to Joanna for 56 years. They have 4 children, 14 grandchildren, and their first great grandchild on the way! They have lived for over 50 years in an economically marginal area of Chicago’s westside. As part of Circle Church, they moved into the Central Austin district of Chicago’s westside seeking to learn firsthand how to better bridge the gap between Black and White, rich and poor.

“Austin has been where we raised our family and learned to trust our Lord more completely. We are deeply grateful for the privilege of living our lives here. We have learned so much from our experiences. I am a better entrepreneur and a more resilient individual because we have shared life with strong people who are very different from us.”