With a 28-year history across diverse sectors and market conditions, Easan Katir, a Registered Investment Advisor, manages wealth for families, individuals and retirement plans. He has appeared on CNBC and Bloomberg television and co-hosted a syndicated radio talk show "It's Your Money". He has conducted extensive studies and analyses of the markets, and has written about behavioral finance, based on three years of personal mentorship by the legendary Ed Seykota. Some activities were in private markets: He developed and sold a 240-home subdivision in California. During the '90s he managed an emerging markets fund in London. In the 80's Katir owned a majority interest in a chain of retail franchise stores, which merged with a public company.
He graduated from the University of Southern California financial planning program in 1985, and earned a CFP designation the same year.
This year Katir, a fourth-generation Californian, celebrates 31 years of marriage, has two grown children, is active in community charitable work, and served as a Budget & Finance Commissioner for the City of Davis, California.
In this internet era of flattened hierarchies, we want to acknowledge those who provide management or other useful services. The people listed below are neither employees or employers of Easan Katir. They run their own large successful companies. They are each recognized as top-notch in what they do, and we are grateful that they help us achieve our goals.
We often allocate some of our accounts to the PIMCO funds. Bill Gross is the best. He is a founder, managing director and co-CIO of PIMCO based in Newport Beach. He has been with PIMCO since he co-founded the firm in 1971 and oversees the management of more than $1 trillion of securities. He is the author of numerous articles on the bond market, as well as the book, "Everything You've Heard About Investing is Wrong," published in 1997. Among the awards he has received, Morningstar named Mr. Gross and his investment team Fixed Income Manager of the Decade for 2000-2009 and Fixed Income Manager of the Year for 1998, 2000, and 2007 (the first three-time recipient). He received the Bond Market Association???s Distinguished Service Award in 2000 and became the first portfolio manager inducted into the Fixed Income Analysts Society's hall of fame in 1996. In a survey conducted by Pensions and Investments magazine in 1993, he was recognized by his peers as the most influential authority on the bond market in the U.S. He has 41 years of investment experience and holds an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his undergraduate degree from Duke University.
Mr. Henry K. Hebeler is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from which he has three degrees. He is the winner of several scholastic awards including MIT's Outstanding Student, Mead Prize, Kuljian Humanities Award, Sperry Gyroscope Fellow and Sloan Fellow. He has taken courses from Nobel prize winners in economics. He had a brief stint teaching at Cal Tech. He has served on the Board of Governors of MIT's Sloan School and other colleges. Most of his working career was at The Boeing Company where he began as an engineer, worked his way through financial analysis, procurement, sales, corporate long range planning, served as president of Boeing Engineering and Construction and president of Boeing Electronics, and ultimately became president of the Boeing Aerospace Company. Mr. Hebeler is recognized for his broad perspective and foresight. For six years he was Boeing's chief forecaster and planner reporting to the chairman. He has been on advisory committees to the U.S. Congress, Departments of Interior, Commerce, Energy, and Defense, an economic advisor to the Washington State governor and a member of Washington's Economic Development Council. After retiring from Boeing in 1989, Mr. Hebeler has focused on helping people plan for retirement, developed special material for analysis of planning issues critical to both workers and retirees, and given numerous seminars on related subjects. His current focus is dissemination of sound financial planning information that applies to a wide range of personal investment, economic and income situations. He is often quoted in national publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Kiplinger's, Business Week, AARP, Money, financial journals, radio and television shows, etc. Mr. Hebeler is the author of J. K. Lasser's Your Winning Retirement Plan (John Wiley & Sons, 2001).
Mr. Thomas Peterffy founded Interactive Brokers (IB) in 1977. Interactive Brokers, headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, is a discount electronic brokerage, trading across multiple asset classes and regions. The company went public in April 2007, and maintains its position as the least expensive trading venue for investors and lowest cost broker, according to Barron's.
Mr. Peterffy was a computer programmer for ten years before becoming a floor trader on the American Stock Exchange in 1977.