Today PLANSPONSOR opens its annual nomination process for its Retirement Plan Adviser and Adviser Team of the Year awards. Launched in 2005, these Awards recognize the contributions of the nation’s best financial advisers in helping make retirement security a reality for workers across the nation.

“Advisers are indispensable members of the team for most workplace retirement plans. These awards acknowledge advisers who make a difference by enhancing the nation’s retirement security, through their support of plan sponsor and plan participant information, support, and education,” says Nevin Adams, Editor-in-Chief of PLANSPONSOR.  “Since the awards’ inception, we’ve focused on advisers who do so through quantifiable measures: increased participation, higher deferral rates, better plan and participant asset allocation, and delivering expanded service and/or better expense management.” 

Nominations for the 2010 Retirement Plan Adviser and Adviser Team of the Year awards are being solicited online from retirement plan adviser colleagues of eligible candidates, their employers and/or broker/dealers, and plan sponsors, as well as from working partners of these advisers, including investment vendors, accountants and attorneys, and pension administrators (advisers who have attained the PLANSPONSOR Retirement Professional designation receive an automatic nomination).   The deadline for nominations for this year’s award is October 1, 2008.  The nomination form is online here.
   
Once advisers are nominated, they are invited to complete an extensive form telling PLANSPONSOR about their practices and client services. Entries can be submitted for an individual (single adviser with one group of clients) or a team (group of advisers who collectively serve one group of client). Semifinalists are compiled from a quantitative evaluation of their current service levels and then finalists will be selected by an expert panel of judges and based advisers’ entry forms and feedback from their plan sponsor clients. 

The 2010 Retirement Plan Adviser and Adviser Team of the Year awards will be announced at the annual PLANSPONSOR/PLANADVISER Awards for Excellence Dinner  in New York City.  The Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year and the Retirement Plan Adviser Team of the Year will be profiled in PLANSPONSOR magazine and PLANADVISER magazine and on their respective Websites.  Additionally, PLANSPONSOR’s list of most successful advisers are drawn from the nominations for this prestigious award.

Previous winners of the award include Steven Dimitriou, Mayflower Advisors, LLC in Boston, Massachusetts (2009); John Barry, JMB Wealth Management, in Torrance, California (2008); Chad Larsen with Moreton Financial Solutions in Denver, Colorado (2007); Dorann Cafaro of The Cafaro Group in Little Silver, New Jersey (2006); and John Mott of Smith Barney in Houston, Texas (2005).  Previous PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan Adviser Team of the Year winners are Fiduciary Investment Advisors in Windsor, Connecticut (2009); FFoA in Pearl River, New York (2008), and the STAR Group with Merrill Lynch in Akron, Ohio (2007).