2007 Plan Adviser of the Year Finalists: The Individuals
Jim O’Shaughnessy
Sheridan Road Financial
Northbrook, Illinois
Jim O’Shaughnessy is a third-generation retirement plan adviser, following his father and grandfather.
Sheridan Road Financial officially came into existence January 1, 2005. At Sheridan Road, O’Shaughnessy’s primary focus is on the plan sponsor, he says, and then he looks to do everything he can to help participants save for retirement. His mantra, he says, is that he is always looking to improve employee participation, deferrals, and diversification.
Since starting his own firm, O’Shaughnessy has been moving up-market. His focus was previously on the $2 million to $10 million space. However, currently, his focus is on the $10 million to $50 million arena, although he does have many legacy clients who are not in that ballpark yet.
Although he didn’t get to work with his grandfather, the early part of O’Shaughnessy’s career was spent alongside his father, a TPA. His first five years working in the retirement plan business, he delivered more than 5,000 educational meetings to plan participants. By the time he took over his father’s business, after his father’s retirement in 1996, more than 80% of the business was serving 401(k) and profit-sharing plans. While he has continued to build on that foundation, he still recalls, “Without my father, I wouldn’t be here today.”
The Individual and Team Finalists
William M. Peragine III
UBS
Huntington, New York
William Peragine began his career as a traditional financial adviser at a wirehouse; then, a client asked him if he would help to review a retirement plan, and Peragine knew that was what he should be working with. “I thought it was a more noble side of the business,” he comments. “I was hooked.”
He initially partnered with his brother-in-law, John Biondo, passing over his retail book to him. Since then, he has left that original firm, but has continued to work with employer-sponsored retirement plans. He now works for UBS in his own group called the Retirement Advisory Group. The group is small, only four people: two financial advisers and two support staff.
Their clients come mostly from the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut areas, although some of those are headquarter locations with smaller shops around the country, he explains. Although the group has one $100 million plan and a few in the $50 million or more range, its real focus is on bringing institutional services to the smaller market, generally focusing on the $7 million to $10 million range.
The Individual and Team Finalists
Troy Hammond
AmeriFlex Financial Services
Santa Barbara, California
Troy Hammond has been working with employer-sponsored retirement plans since he was in college. After meeting his current business partner, Thomas Goodson, who taught Hammond what a 401(k) plan was, he began working for AmeriFlex while still in school.
At the beginning, in the early 1990s, he worked on very few plans, and it was very labor-intensive; after all, participants could only change investments quarterly, and much more paperwork was done by hand, he comments. As time went on, Hammond moved into more of a relationship role, working with the plan sponsors, delivering employee education, and making sure the plan offered a diverse and competitive list of investment options.
Today, Hammond’s company numbers 12 people and there are two divisions: One of them works with the day-to-day administration of qualified plans, and the other delivers employee education and private wealth management. Hammond focuses on sales and relationship management, “making sure our plans are being taken care of,” he explains.
Not only is he moving upmarket, focusing on plans of $5 million to $25 million, from a previous target of $1 million to $8 million, but also the practice is growing geographically, taking clients from a larger radius than he had previously, he says.
The Individual and Team Finalists
Tom Noble
Noble Retirement Group
Sugar Land, Texas
Tom Noble founded the Noble Retirement Group and has grown it to six people. Noble decided that, to offer a full-service operation to his sponsor clients, he needed to offer retail management. In that vein, he hired Jeff Hill to lead the retail business more than a year ago, and that aspect of the business will grow, Noble suspects. These days, the Noble Retirement Group includes two Nobles: Tom and his younger brother Mark, a more recent recruit, who aids in enrollment and ongoing education. The most loyal of employees, however, might be Noble’s assistant, Veronica Brooks, who has been with Noble for 12 years and handles 401(k) clients. Another assistant, Michelle Hotchkiss, handles the overflow from the 401(k) clients as well as the retail business. Rounding out the firm is Anne Marie Willenborg, a retirement plan consultant and CPA, who joined the group early in 2006.
Noble works at growing the company, not only in advisers, but in plans under advisement. To that end, the Noble Retirement Group delivers three seminars each month: two aimed at retail clients and one to prospect for 401(k) clients. To garner interest in these seminars, Noble still relies on direct mailings; he sends out between 1,500 and 2,000 invitations every month and, from that, gets about 25 to 30 attendees at each event, he says.
Chad J. Larsen
Moreton Financial Solutions, a member firm of National Retirement Partners
Denver, Colorado
In 1987, Chad Larsen began working with Aetna and really enjoyed the retirement area. “I love the retirement market,” Larsen comments. “I think it is critically important.”
Three years later, he started his own benefits consulting firm. While his partner focused on health care, Larsen specialized in retirement—an arrangement that held until 2005 when his benefits group was acquired by a national firm. At that point, Larsen found a home at Moreton Financial Solutions, a regional full-service financial and insurance group benefits company that had never had a retirement practice and was looking to start one.
In their Denver office, Larsen works with his associate Corey Whitehead and two support staff; the company also has an ERISA attorney on staff in the Salt Lake City office. Larsen serves all types of plans, including 401(k), 403(b), 457, and defined benefit plans. Although based in Denver, Larsen works with Moreton Financial Solutions offices in Salt Lake City; Boise, Idaho; and Phoenix, Arizona.
Both Larsen and Whitehead deliver employee education seminars, and Larsen also offers employer seminars, looking to educate the plan sponsor clients. “I have always enjoyed doing employee group meetings,” he says. “I make sure they are a lot of fun.”