Adviser Members

Rod Bare is a defined contribution consultant for Russell Investments. Rod serves as a consultant to several defined contribution plans, providing advice on plan structure, fund selection, target-date best practices and custom glide path construction. He joined Russell in 2010.

Prior to joining Russell, Rod spent six years at Morningstar where he was most recently director, asset allocation strategies responsible for asset allocation index product and business development. While in that role, Rod authored several papers on next-generation target-date methodology and benchmarking target-date funds. He also wrote the lifecycle investing chapter for the Ibbotson SBBI book. Rod has testified before the SEC and DOL on target-date funds, has spoken at several DC industry conferences and has been quoted widely in the media on various retirement investing issues.

Before joining Morningstar, Rod was an investment banker with Deutsche Bank Securities focused on repairing and optimizing corporate capital structures through a wide range of equity, equity-linked and fixed income transactions.

Dorann is the founding partner of Cafaro Greenleaf, started in 1981. She also is among the founders of National Retirement Partners, a leading national network of independent retirement experts. PLANSPONSOR magazine recently named Dorann their Retirement Advisor of the Year. She was named by 401k Wire as one of the 50 most influential people in the 401k retirement industry, and is a frequent and keynote speaker on the retirement industry at national conferences and seminars.

Cafaro Greenleaf provides retirement consulting services to retirement plan sponsors and their participants. They focus exclusively on design and implementation of retirement plans, providing the identification and monitoring of investment programs tailored to meet plan sponsor's needs. Cafaro Greenleaf is focused on addressing liabilities, minimizing costs and reducing the burden on the benefit providers. In addition, they deliver in-person education around the country.

Dorann has been a Regional Director of Retirement Services for Prudential Investments, a Corporate V.P. and National Director of Retirement Planning for PaineWebber, and a Senior Vice President of Marketing for a leading money management firm. She holds a B.S. from Marquette University in mathematics, and is Series 7, 8, 63, 65 and Health and Life licensed. Dorann frequently lectures at national conferences on retirement planning and has provided retirement education and consulting services for Fortune 500 companies. Dorann, with over 28 years in the financial industry, is recognized for her unique, unbiased consulting advice.

Steve Vernon, F.S.A., is President of Rest-of-Life Communications and a member of the Executive Faculty and Research Fellow with the California Institute for Finance at California Lutheran University, where he conducts research on behavioral finance. He recently retired as Vice President and Consulting Actuary with the human resources consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide. For over 30 years, he helped large employers design and manage their retirement programs.

Steve is one of the most sought-after retirement experts in the country. He is quoted frequently in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USAToday, BusinessWeek, Fortune Magazine, Kiplinger's, and Money Magazine. He also writes occasional columns for Retirement Weekly. He is an experienced speaker, with over 300 presentations, keynote addresses and workshops on his books Don't Work Forever! and Live Long & Prosper! and his DVD The Quest. He has addressed audiences ranging from professional conferences, lunch/dinner clubs, women's executive organizations, employee groups, union organizations, and executive retreats. Audience sizes have ranged from 20 to over 1,000.

Steve graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of California, Irvine with a double major in Mathematics and Social Science, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

John Fenton is a director with Towers Watson in the firm's Atlanta office and is head of the firm's North American Life Product Group. John joined Towers Watson in 1985. He specializes in product, economic and distribution issues related to retail life and annuity business, including the retirement income market.

John's recent projects include assisting a major financial services company in evaluating the retirement market, and determining whether they could successfully offer an annuity product in this market. He is also responsible for assisting several companies in clarifying their offering in the retirement income market, including assistance in developing products for this market.

Recently, John has been responsible for assisting a plan sponsor in evaluating the reasonableness of an income product offered in their qualified plan and assisting a major financial services company clarify its strategy in the variable annuity market, including benchmarking the company's offerings (e.g., product, compensation, fund offerings, sales support and brand name) relative to industry best practices. He has also been developing a feasibility study for a life insurance company contemplating entry into the variable annuity market, which reviewed the considerations for the company in building its own product versus establishing a joint venture with others.

In addition, John has been responsible for performing pricing and profitability analyses for multiple companies in the following areas: variable deferred annuity; variable immediate annuity; living benefits and GMDB; single premium variable life insurance; variable universal life; fixed annuities; universal life.

John also led the Towers Watson team that provided embedded value opinion for major life insurer for public disclosure and was the lead consultant on several Towers Watson surveys including Measuring Distribution Performance, Annuity Expense Survey, and Annuity Wholesaling Survey.

Prior to joining the firm, John worked for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

John is a frequent speaker on variable products at industry seminars, including Society of Actuaries and National Association of Variable Annuities (NAVA) meetings, and is frequently quoted in leading publications, including the Wall Street Journal, National Underwriter, and Best's. He is also past chairperson of the SOA Product Development Section Council.

John has written several articles on retirement income, including The Retirement Income Market: An Opportunity for U.S. Life Insurers (Update, September 2006), Wooing Baby Boomers (A.M. Best, September 2006), Managing Risk in the Retirement Income Market (Emphasis, 2007), and The Global Emergence of Variable Annuities (Emphasis, 2007).

John received a B.S. in statistics from George Washington University. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Clark Frese is the founding member and principal of Asset Strategy Retirement Plan Consultants (ASRPC), a SEC Registered Investment Advisory firm focused on retirement plan consulting. In addition to the work at ASRPC, he is also a senior consultant at Asset Strategy Consultants LLC. Clark is also an Accredited Investment Fiduciary Auditor from the Center for Fiduciary Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Clark is a Certified Pension Consultant from the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries and a Chartered Life Underwriter from the American College. Clark has worked with investment monitoring and managing fiduciary responsibility for qualified plans for over 25 years.

John joined CAPTRUST Financial Advisors spring of 2010 opening the company's first Texas office in Dallas. He joins CAPTRUST following a successful career with RBC Wealth Management's Institutional Consulting Group. At RBC, Pickett created a revered advisory practice, representing $8.5 billion in assets under management, with many of his client relationships spanning 25 years or more. Highly regarded as the consummate educator, Pickett is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and educational symposiums, including TEXPERS, the Investment Management Institute, and Institutional Investors. John graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Baylor University. He completed his Investment Manager Analysis Certification (CIMA) after attending courses at The Wharton School.

Michael has over three decades of financial consulting and private industry experience, bringing his clients a special blend of understanding problems and implementing solutions. He started his career with Deloitte, Haskins & Sells, Certified Public Accountants, and obtained his Certified Public Accountant certificate in 1976. Thereafter, for nine years, he worked as a Controller and Chief Financial Officer.

Changing his career direction, Michael has now spent another twenty three years as a Financial Advisor. During this time, he obtained his Certified Life Underwriter (CLU), Certified Financial Planner™ (CFP®) and Chartered Financial Consultant® (ChFC®) professional designations and has registered his company, Preisz Associates, Inc., as an Independent Investment Advisor. His areas of focus follow:

• Qualified Retirement Plans
• Estate Planning
• Non-Qualified Executive Compensation Plans
• Charitable Gifting
• Business Succession Planning

Michael Preisz focuses exclusively on qualified retirement plans and business and estate life insurance. He does not maintain a book of individual investment clients.

Matthew Radgowski, a vice president with Wilshire Associates, is a member of Wilshire Funds Management's team. Matthew brings more than thirteen years of experience in the financial services industry with previous responsibilities for financial product management, development, and sales. He is responsible for the product management, marketing and sales within the business unit.

Matthew joined the firm in 2006. He earned his BS in Accountancy from the University of Illinois.

Chris Raham is a Senior Actuarial Advisor in the Insurance and Actuarial Advisory Services practice of Ernst & Young and is based in the firm's New York office. He has more than fourteen years of experience serving the financial services industry. Prior to joining Ernst & Young he served as a consulting actuary in a major actuarial consulting firm and as a member of the pricing and valuation area in a large life insurance company.

As leader of the firm's Retirement Income practice, Chris is responsible for the delivery of the firm's actuarial services aimed at institutions seeking a competitive advantage in the retirement distribution market place. Primary services include risk assessments of retirement planning tools, product allocation optimization, product development and selection, third-party independent whitepaper analysis, value demonstrations and planning tool development.

A frequent contributor in both mainstream and industry publications, Chris has recently appeared in SmartMoney, Best's Review and National Underwriter.

Recent presentations at industry events include "Recognizing Retirement Risk in Planning Tools" at the 2007 Retirement Income Industry Association meeting and "Meeting the Longevity Challenge" at the 2007 Society of Actuaries Product Development Symposium.

Chris holds a Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Science from the University of Calgary in Canada. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, serves as the Vice-Chair for the Actuary of the Future Section Council and is a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Martin Schmidt is a Principal with HS2 Solutions. His areas of concentration include retirement plan design, system design, fee benchmarking, and vendor selection. He brings over 25 years experience working with both plan sponsors and providers on benefit related issues.

Martin is a former Principal with Buck Consultants where he managed the Midwest region of their retirement practice. His experience also includes managing 401(k) and defined benefit teams at Hewitt. He also was responsible for developing third party relationships with system providers along with leading the effort at Hewitt to develop the first 401(k) daily trading platform to trade and settle investments from separate managers. Through his knowledge and experience in the industry he has developed effective solutions for both plan sponsors and providers.

Martin holds a CPA certificate and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences. He has graduate degree in finance from Loyola University of Chicago and an accounting degree from Northern Illinois University.

Martha L. Tejera is the head of Tejera & Associates, a fee-for service firm that focuses on helping employers meet their fiduciary responsibility in the selection and benchmarking of their retirement plan providers. Martha has consulted with industry leaders for over 25 years. Her knowledge and experience in the industry allow her to help plan sponsors select a provider and build a long term, successful partnership with that vendor.

Martha works with a variety of individuals and team structures, including HR, finance, retirement plan committees, independent investment consultants, and outside ERISA counsel. This focus on administration allows for a comprehensive assessment of vendor suitability.

A former Principal with Mercer, Martha specialized in helping plan sponsors develop processes to improve their fiduciary oversight, manage vendor service levels and fees, and improve the overall value provided by their defined contribution retirement plans, while simultaneously managing costs. Martha's experience also includes managing defined contribution recordkeeping teams for Mercer, Watson Wyatt, and in-house for Weyerhaeuser.

Martha is an Enrolled Actuary under ERISA and a past Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. She is an honors graduate of the University of Washington in economics.

Fred Reish is an ERISA attorney whose practice focuses on fiduciary responsibility and plan operational issues. His clients include plan sponsors and fiduciaries, broker-dealers and RIAs, recordkeepers and TPAs and other financial service companies and providers.

He was recognized as one of the 15 "Legends" of the retirement industry by PLANSPONSOR magazine. Fred also received awards for: the 401(k) Industry's Most Influential Person by 401kWire; the Commissioner's Award and the District Director's Award by the IRS; the Eidson Founder's Award by ASPPA; the Institutional Investor and the PLANSPONSOR magazine Lifetime Achievement Awards; and the ASPPA 401(k) Leadership Award.

In addition, he has been recognized in the legal community as a Charter Fellow of the Employee Benefits Counsel of the American Bar Association and as one of "The Best Lawyers in America." He has written 350 articles and four books about retirement plans, including a monthly column on 401(k) fiduciary issues for PLANSPONSOR magazine.

Fred Co-Chaired the IRS Los Angeles Benefits Conference for over 10 years, served as a founding Co-Chair of the ASPPA 401(k) Summit, and has served on the Steering Committee for the DOL National Conference.

Bill Charyk is the managing attorney of Arent Fox. In the past, he served as the department manager of the general business department. Bill's practice in the tax area focuses primarily on two specialty areas-taxation of partnerships and employee benefit/executive compensation tax planning.

Bill is also heavily involved with the tax and compliance aspects of our employee benefits practice. As such, he ultimately supervises the planning and implementation of a wide variety of compensation vehicles, including defined benefit pension plans, Section 401(k) programs, employee stock ownership plans (ESOP), and various executive deferred compensation arrangements stock appreciation right plans and phantom stock bonus programs.

Bill served as an adjunct professor of law at The Georgetown University Law Center for over 25 years where he taught a graduate-level course in taxation of partnerships, with special lectures devoted to ERISA plan investor issues. Washingtonian Magazine and the Best Lawyers in America survey have repeatedly recognized Bill for his tax and ERISA expertise.

William earned a bachelor's degree from The Johns Hopkins University and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School, order of the COIF.

Mendel Melzer leads Newport's investment and fiduciary consulting services and serves as President of Newport Group Securities, Inc.—Newport's registered investment advisor and broker/dealer. His team provides investment and fiduciary consulting services to over 400 of Newport's institutional clients. Mendel has 25 years of investment management experience.

He began his career at Prudential Financial, where he held several key leadership positions including Chief Investment Officer of Prudential Investments. In this position, he oversaw the management of portfolios totaling over $180 billion. Mendel subsequently served as Chief Investment Officer of Weiss, Peck and Greer, an alternative asset management firm with over $17 billion under management.

Mendel earned his bachelor's degree (with honors) from the University of Wisconsin and his master's degree (with distinction) from New York University. In addition to the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, he holds Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Financial Consultant designations. His licenses include Series 7, 24, 63 and 65.

Ben Yahr F.S.A. is an Actuarial Advisor in the Insurance and Actuarial Advisory Services practice of Ernst & Young, and has more than seventeen years of experience serving the financial services industry. As a member of the firm's Retirement Income team, Mr. Yahr is responsible for the delivery of the firm's product and actuarial services aimed at institutions seeking a competitive advantage in the retirement market place. Primary services include strategic gap assessments of products and services, third-party product selection and management, accelerated product development services, insurance-based pension risk management solutions, longevity transaction structures and product allocation optimization models. A frequent contributor in both mainstream and industry publications, Ben has recently appeared in Employee Benefit Adviser and Benefits Pro. He co-authored "Effective Due Diligence for Guaranteed Lifetime Income Options", Benefits Quarterly, Third Quarter 2011, and presented on "In-plan guarantees, a fad or reality?" at LIMRA's Retirement Industry Conference in April 2011. Prior to joining Ernst & Young, Mr. Yahr led the Wealth Management business for a small financial advisory firm that provided consulting services to defined contribution plan sponsors and investment advice to affluent individuals. Mr. Yahr is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, is a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.