PLANSPONSOR to Name Retirement Plan Adviser, Adviser Team of the Year

Ahead of that announcement (we’ll announce the winner tomorrow, for those of you not at the dinner), I wanted to once again congratulate – and give you a chance to “meet” our finalists:

2009 Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year Finalists

Paul D’Aiutolo , UBS, Rochester, New York

Steven Dimitriou , Mayflower Advisors, LLC, Boston, Massachusetts

Claiborne “Chip” Morton , Corporate Advisors Group, a Member Firm of NRP, Destin, Florida

Philip Steele , Pension Architects, a Member Firm of NRP, Malibu, California

Mark Temple , O’Hanlon Michener & Douglas, a Member Firm of NRP, Slingerlands, New York

2009 Retirement Plan Adviser Team of the Year Finalists

Fiduciary Investment Advisors (Mark Wetzel, Michael Goss, Karen Paulson, Kate Fournier, Ryan Gardner, Chris Kachmar, Tony Tranghese, Bill Peck), Windsor, Connecticut

Kelliher Group at Morgan Stanley (Stephen Kelliher, Joseph McLaughlin, Bennett White), Norwell, Massachusetts

The Kieckhefer Group, RBC Wealth Management (Rob Kieckhefer, Janet Ganong, Brian Kertscher, Darlene Roslawski, Meghan Madigan), Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Pensionmark Retirement Group (Troy Hammond, Laura Battle, Devyn Duex, Deanna Bamford, Mike Woods, Daren Alcantar, Denisse Hernandez), Santa Barbara, California

SageView Advisory Group (Randall Long and Jon Upham), Irvine, California

Coming tomorrow! The winners!

This year’s finalists were drawn from a pool of more than 550 nominations representing more than 80 advisers or adviser teams. Information was collected from 203 advisers or adviser teams and, of those, 38 individuals and 65 teams completed the entry form in its entirety, making them eligible for the award.

Nominations for the Retirement Plan Adviser and Adviser Team of the Year awards were solicited online from retirement plan advisers, their employers and/or broker/dealers, and plan sponsors, as well as from working partners of these advisers. Finalists were selected by an expert panel of judges from a list of semifinalists compiled from a quantitative evaluation of current service levels, and based on interviews with their plan sponsor clients.

Previous winners of the PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year award include John Barry with 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 winners of the PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan Adviser Team of the Year are FFoA (now part of StoneStreet Equity) in Pearl River, New York (2008) and the STAR Group with Merrill Lynch (now with CAPTRUST Financial Advisors) in Akron, Ohio (2007).

A list of the most successful advisers taken from those nominated for the award can be found at http://www.plansponsor.com/survey_type1/?RECORD_ID=44209