Monte Poole

Monte Poole, client service manager with Bank of America, says, “Within client services, there are portions of your role that are routine: annual testing, audits, filing Form 5500. But the rest can best be summarized as ‘the great unknown.’ A new opportunity to excel and exceed a client’s expectations will present itself to you when you least expect it. I think the unknown portion of my job is what keeps me excited about it. No matter how long your tenure, you can always learn something new or encounter an issue with a plan that you have never seen before.”

For ION Media, Poole has brought value to the plan through group and one-on-one educational meetings he holds with the participants and the training and guidance he provides to the retirement committee.

Michele Kahme, senior director, human resources (HR), at ION Media, says educating the company’s workers “about the importance of retirement savings and the different investment options that ION offers has been critical to the success of the plan. Whether a person is just out of college or has been in the workforce for a long time, people don’t know as much as they should about saving and planning for retirement.”

At the meetings, Kahme says, Poole makes it a point to educate people about the tools on Bank of America’s website.

Poole says: “I try to make all of the sessions interactive and each one a little different. I prefer to set aside 75 minutes for the group sessions, to allow for time for questions throughout.” Individual meetings are typically 30 minutes in duration.

As for the committee, which includes Kahme, Poole has been invaluable in teaching the members “about our fiduciary responsibilities and key issues, like revenue sharing,” she says. “He has guided us on how to assess the funds in the plan and what we should be looking for—and how we can make the best decisions for our employees. He is very organized and helps us stay in compliance.”

—Lee Barney