Legends - Intro

The dictionary says a legend is “a story coming down from the past, especially one popularly regarded as historical although not verifiable.” In the history of retirement plans, there are many legends: stories told again and again about people, companies, legislators. You hear lots of talk about “back in the days of…” and “how far we have come.”

The retirement plan adviser world is a little bit younger, experiencing significant growth in the last decade. PLANADVISER is younger still, “born” in 2006, its first issue published just weeks after the Pension Protection Act was signed into law, but there is no question that the industry has undergone dramatic changes even during that relatively short period.

For PLANADVISER’s fifth anniversary, we chose five individuals to name as legends. We wanted to acknowledge five individuals who had made a “significant personal impact on the retirement plan industry and the advisers who support it.” We limited our list to five, in honor of the five years PLANADVISER has been published, and we tried to focus on those who had had the largest influence during the past five years.

In our estimation, the five worthy of acknowledgement as “legends” are: Bill Chetney, Chief Executive Officer and President, LPL Financial Retirement Partners; Bob Doll, Chief Equity Strategist and head of the U.S. Large Cap Series equity team at BlackRock; Congressman George Miller, (D-California), Ranking Democrat, Committee on Education and the Workforce; Don Phillips, President, Fund Research, Morningstar, Inc.; and Fred Reish, Partner at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.

They are leaders, innovators, partners—some have challenged the status quo, others have laid the foundation for a new one, and still others have helped us all negotiate the period(s) in between. There are some familiar faces, as you might expect—many have appeared in our pages over the past five years. Their impact has not been without the occasional burst of controversy, but their influence is unquestionable.

These five individuals represent multiple facets of the retirement plan advisory industry: regulatory, legislative, practice management, and investments. However you look at them, they have inspired our industry, our lives, and our collective future. They, or their predictions, company, laws, products, or writings, come up in conver­sations with retirement plan advisers regularly, and will for years to come. —PA