EVERYBODY PLAY THE GAME

Paul Miravete wants you and your kids to be smarter.

Smarter about money, that is.

Miravete has piloted commercial jets for 25 years, but back in the late 1990s, it was the high-flying stock market that captured the Henderson resident's attention. He formed an interest in investing, and along the way, had an epiphany: He could use what he was learning about Wall Street to promote financial literacy in both adults and children.

And so a board game was born. Miravete founded WesKel Games in 2000 and spent three years researching and developing Portfolio, a game that sends players on a quest for investment savvy and stock-market riches.

Miravete had to climb a steep learning curve in formulating Portfolio.

"Knowing nothing at first about investing and nothing about the game world, it was trial and error," Miravete said. "It was like going to college."

The result of Miravete's self-schooling comes in two versions.

Portfolio Masters is aimed at adults. The goal? To rack up $10,000, plus three puzzle pieces representing a diverse asset base of stocks, bonds and funds. Portfolio Masters features close to 1,600 finance-related trivia questions; it teaches concepts including investment time horizons, and it differentiates between stock types such as small cap, growth and large cap.

For sheer educational value, though, Miravete is especially proud of Portfolio Junior, a game for kids ages 5 to 8. Portfolio Junior is more streamlined than its adult-focused counterpart -- kids need to collect just the puzzle pieces and $25, and there are no trivia questions. Concepts are simple: Players who draw a card that says teddy-bear sales are up, for example, might collect $2; if profits at the ice-cream parlor slide, they could surrender $1. The game even makes basic references to economic phenomena such as a bull market, which earns players extra dollars, and inflation, which subtracts from their stash of cash.

"There's no reason kids can't start learning terms like stock, bond and fund," Miravete said. "My objective is to give our society a better understanding of the investment world, and to encourage people to become more proactive with their finances from an early age."

Miravete estimates he's sold nearly 10,000 games since he began offering Portfolio in 2003.

Yet getting the word out about the game has been tough, partly because WesKel is so small. Miravete is the operation's only employee -- though his kids, company namesakes Wesley, 7, and Kelli, 5, serve as WesKel's focus group and the models in pictures on some game boxes -- so it's difficult to produce the volume of games that major distribution deals require. National chains such as Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us attach "a lot of strings" to the manufacturers they work with, Miravete said. A big retailer could ask for 100,000 games, and filling such a large order would require a large, upfront investment from WesKel. What's more, a retailer who wants a product for Christmas will often place an order in January and ask for delivery in the spring. Then they'll store the games in a warehouse until the fall.

"I'd basically be floating (retailers) for six months," Miravete said. "I just can't do it."

Miravete has caught one lucky retailing break.

Barbara Lund, merchandising and marketing director at Museumtours.com, heard about Portfolio through a business associate and looked into the games. Museumtours.com, a catalog that museums use to stock gift stores, added Portfolio to its lineup in 2004 after determining that the games met criteria, including educational value and price. Portfolio Masters retails for $34.95 at the site, while Portfolio Junior sells for $19.95.

"I called Paul to talk with him about his game, and I found him to be a passionate professional," Lund said. "You could tell he was a good family man who cared about kids. Our consumers love (Portfolio), and I think Paul is an example of quality products made by people with a genuine commitment to a child's well-being and education."

Lund said Miravete's dedication to promoting Portfolio also nabbed her attention.

Miravete, who flies throughout North America for United Airlines four days a week, stuffs his suitcases with Portfolio editions and hands them out everywhere he travels. He'll give them to children flying on his planes, to families staying in the hotels he's visiting and even to hotel housekeepers. He took about 100 Portfolio Junior games on a family trip to Arizona and gave one to every child staying in his hotel.

"I knew he was committed to producing the product, and committed to improving any aspect or area of his business that needed it," Lund said.

For Miravete, improving WesKel means adding to the products the company offers.

He's selling Petfolio, a children's game that calls on players to gather animal cards and imitate animal sounds.

He just completed a series of children's books called "Mr. C's Investment Club," featuring narratives of field trips to aircraft manufacturers, amusement parks and cruise ships, among other types of businesses. He also has plans for a family-oriented video game, a cartoon series based on "Mr. C's Investment Club" and an animated movie.

He'll probably have at least one buyer of some of those products in Museumtours.com.

"I would look at and most likely carry anything that comes down Paul's pipeline because of the commitment and quality he's previously showed," Lund said.

If Miravete can convince enough merchandisers to carry his goods, he'll hang up his pilot's wings and focus full-time on WesKel.

He set a 10-year horizon for the company's self-sufficiency when he launched WesKel seven years ago.

"I'm putting in a lot of groundwork into it, and maybe if things go well, I'll reach that goal soon," Miravete said. "I would love to trade in my pilot's job for (WesKel) full-time. I love being creative."