Seminar Panelists and Contributors
The Fiduciary Awareness Seminar Series for 2009 will kick-off in Colorado, the home of Fiduciary Awareness, LLC. The specialized expertise of our Panelists and Contributors promises to make each seminar a very high quality experience.
Steven J. Case, CFP®, AIF® , Financial Independence, LLC. Steve is a graduate of Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science in business administration and applied economics. He has earned the Certified Financial Planner™ (CFP®), Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC), Accredited Investment Fiduciary® (AIF®), and Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) designations. Steve is co-founder and senior partner of Financial Independence LLC and has more than 21 years of professional experience in strategic retirement planning. Integrity and education are the two cornerstones of Steve’s business philosophy. He is a capable and enthusiastic educator, and has spent much of the last decade giving seminars throughout Michigan on fiduciary awareness in 401k Plans and financial planning.
Cameron Evans, Partner, Honigman Miller Schwartz & Cohn LLP. Mr. Evans is an attorney with Honigman Miller Schwartz & Cohn, located in Detroit. He has extensive experience representing businesses in state and federal courts, administrative agencies and private arbitrations (including traditional labor arbitration) in various facets of employment-related litigation, including class and collective action litigation and ERISA breach of fiduciary duty litigation. A graduate of Wayne State University Law School, J.D., he has successfully argued numerous appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the Michigan Court of Appeals. Mr. Evans has been recognized by many independent resources as one of Michigan's leading employment attorneys: The Best Lawyers in America, Michigan Super Lawyers, and DBusiness.
Dawn Jasinski, CPA. Ms. Jasinski is an audit manager for Doeren Mayhew in the firm’s Troy, MI office. Dawn began her career with Doeren Mayhew in 2000 and performs audits, reviews, and compilations in the areas of construction, manufacturing, and service providers for privately held companies. She specializes in employee benefit plan audits; limited and full scope audits for both single and multiple-employer plans. She has extensive knowledge ranging from compliance with ever-changing trends, regulations, and laws related to the plan sponsor and its various service providers. Ms. Jasinski also mentors and supervises junior audit staff, helping them to understand and exercise best practices. Dawn administers employee benefit plan training, attends local and national seminars and maintains continuing education. Dawn graduated from Walsh College with a Bachelor of Accountancy degree. She is an active member in various professional and community organizations and chairs the firm Work Life Committee.
Andrew Stumpff, Shareholder, Stevenson Keppelman Associates. Mr. Stumpff is a long-time employee benefits and executive compensation lawyer. He handles a wide array of benefits-related issues, with particular emphasis on ERISA fiduciary questions and executive compensation. Earlier in his career Mr. Stumpff was a partner of the New York law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, and prior to that served as Assistant Branch Chief in the IRS Office of Chief Counsel's Employee Benefits and Exempt Organizations Division, where he helped oversee national employee benefits litigation. He is a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel and has been named a Michigan Super Lawyer in the field of employee benefits/ERISA. He is a former co-chair of the Employee Benefits Committee of the New York State Bar Association Tax Section. Currently Mr. Stumpff teaches Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation at the University of Michigan Law School and in the University of Alabama Law School LL.M in Taxation program. He is the author of numerous articles as well as a law school textbook, "Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation," recently published by Foundation Press.
Daniel T. Ellis, CPA. Dan Ellis works closely with business owners and executive management teams of closely-held businesses in manufacturing and automotive supply, wholesale, distribution, and service-related industries. Most of his clients are U.S. based, some with an international presence in countries including Brazil, Mexico and China. Dan’s primary role is an auditor of corporate financial statements and employee benefit plans. With over 6 years of public accounting experience, Dan holds a bachelors degree from Western Michigan University. He is a member of the MACPA and the AICPA,and is Chair of the MACPA New Professional Task Force.
James T. Biehl, CPA, MST. Shareholder of Assurance Services, Employee Benefit Plan Audit Team Leader. Jim provides leadership and counsel for the firm’s assurance practice and leads the firm’s employee benefit plan audit team. Under his direction, the team provides more than 30 employee benefit audits a year. Subject to very specific rules requiring specialized knowledge, Jim is diligent in making sure the team receives extensive compliance training to meet the requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Department of Labor (DOL), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Clayton & McKervey is one of about 100 firms whose credentials are recognized by the Audit Quality Center of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Jim is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants and serves on the MACPA’s Member Advisory Forum. He is a former Chairman of the Auditing and Accounting Committee for PKF International Limited, a network of legally independent member firms with representation in 125 countries, and previously served on the group’s Accounting and Auditing Task Force. Jim also spent two years as a member of the KEY Group, an executive roundtable for closely held businesses. Jim received his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Central Michigan University and his Masters of Science in Taxation from Walsh College. An active father, Jim enjoys watching his children play soccer and also likes to play golf.
Brenda Bert, Of Counsel, Holland & Hart, LLP. Ms. Berg counsels employers on a wide array of tax and ERISA matters affecting employee benefit plans, from the initial design and drafting stage through the day-to-day administration questions and complications that arise. She regularly works with 401(k) plans, defined benefit pension plans, health and welfare plans, and nonqualified deferred compensation plans. Prior to becoming an employee benefits attorney, Ms. Berg was a third-party administrator for 401(k) plans. Ms. Berg has extensive experience in drafting and reviewing 401(k) plans, defined benefit plans, welfare plans (including self-insured plans and cafeteria plans) and their related service agreements and trust agreements; Agreements for compliance with Section 409A; Resolving qualified plan errors and operational issues through self-correction; IRS and DOL correction programs; Advising on welfare plan operational, design and administrative issues such as claims and appeals handling, COBRA, nondiscrimination testing (self-insured plans and cafeteria plans), coordination among HRAs, HSAs, and health FSAs, and ERISA interaction with state laws; and Assisting employers with employee benefits matters in reductions in force, including partial termination, COBRA, and severance.
Mark M. Gutrich, Co-Founder, ePlan Services, Inc. Mr. Gutrich is the Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of ePlan Services, and has spent the past seventeen years as a leader in the small business retirement plan space. Having owned both an SEC-Registered Investment Advisor and been a principal with a FINRA-registered Broker/Dealer, Mark has a unique understanding of the structural make-up of various 401(k) products. In addition, Mark has been featured in and written numerous articles about the various facets of 401(k) plans as well as presented at numerous industry trade shows and conferences regarding the effective management of employer-sponsored retirement plans.
Melissa K. Hooley, Director, Anton Collins Mitchell LLP. Ms. Hooley's background includes over 20 years of experience in accounting, auditing, taxation and consulting; specializing in qualified and welfare benefit plan services. Her career as a CPA began in 1988 with Arthur Anderson. While at Anderson and now at ACM, Melissa has developed and directed a highly specialized qualified and welfare benefit plan audit practice for the Rocky Mountain Region and has served 100+ busines clients and provided audit services for more than 250 benefit plans. Melissa provides services to some of the largest pension plans in the region. She has successfully consulted with clients of various sizes on plan-related matters including compliance issues, plan design and financial reporting issues. Melissa is a member of the AICPA National Employee Benefite Plan Expert Panel, which is a select group of industry experts from national and regional firms who guide the industry on technical matters. Additionally, she is a member of various AICPA Employee Benefit Plan Task Forces and of the BDO National EBP technical team.
Renee O’Rourke,Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig, LLP. Ms. O’Rourke leads the employee benefits practice group for Greenberg Traurig in Denver. She has spent the past twenty-four years in the qualified plans space, leading similar groups for various regional law firms. She has represented clients in cases involving fiduciary issues and is experienced in working with the IRS and U.S. Department of Labor on retirement plan matters. Her experience in employee benefits includes representation of clients before the Internal Revenue Service (at both the audit and appellate levels) and the Department of Labor, and includes designing, drafting and amending profit sharing plans, money purchase pension plans, target benefit plans, defined benefit plans, 401(k) plans, 457(b) and (f) plans, 457 trusts and custodial agreements, 403(b) plans and group trusts.
Scott Brookes, Director, Sharkey Howes & Javer, Inc. Mr. Brookes is the leader of Sharkey Howes & Javer’s retirement plans group.He has over 20 years experience in the industry, providing clients with retirement plan consulting services, vendor searches, fee audits, trustee education and investment analysis. Scott is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF).Prior to SHJ, Scott was a Vice President and consulting Retirement Plan Specialist for an international brokerage firm. He assisted clients in corporate retirement plan searches and benefits implementation. He consulted with clients on appropriate program structures and cost-effective designs for defined contribution, pension and executive deferred compensation plans. Over the years, Scott has worked with several hundred mid-sized corporations and not-for profit organizations, as well as with member companies of the Fortune 500.
Sandra L. Shoemaker, CPA. Ms. Shoemaker is a principal in the audit service area of EKS&H and has been involved in public accounting since 1990, serving publicly traded and privately-held companies. She has extensive knowledge of financial statement audits and has provided services to companies in the franchising, wholesale distribution, manufacturing, high-technology, software and real estate industries. Sandy has a depth of experience working with employee-owned companies and advising on the proper use of employee stock ownership plans. Additionally, she has provided employee benefit plan audit services to various clients.Sandy graduated cum laude from Southwest Missouri State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting. She is an active member in various professional and community organizations.
Kathy Odle, Member, Sherman & Howard LLC provides day-to-day advice to all sizes and types of employers, including publicly traded entities, non-profit entities and governmental employers, on all aspects of employee benefits, including qualified plans and 401(k) plans, executive compensation, welfare benefits, and equity arrangements. Ms. Odle has received many honors in the area of employee benefits, including #1 in Chambers USA for Employee Benefits Law. She has organized and performed review of stock option grants to employees, performed review of, and drafted revisions to, all deferred compensation arrangements subject to Internal Revenue Code Section 409A for many clients, as well as advised several publicly traded clients on issues involving 401(k) plans with contributions invested in employer securities, and recommended and implemented changes to such plans to reduce fiduciary liability of employer.