Not that Richard Carpenter is retired—or even thinking about it—but he’ll be in prime position when he finally does.
The proprietor of USVI Pensions set up shop in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, hence the name.
“I consult with companies in the retirement plan business,” Carpenter said matter-of-factly before expanding. “They might be a mutual fund, an insurance company, a broker-dealer, TPA. I’m a lead consultant for the ASPPA/CEFEX-Certified Record Keeper and TPA program, and I consult with a few groups on acquisitions of TPAs and record keepers.”
By consulting, he means determining whether or not firms are operating under best practices (in the case of CEFEX). With mutual funds, it could be distribution consulting as far as the “right” partners to have, or it could be the due diligence process he developed for those that use TPAs as intermediaries.
His 35-plus years in the business make him a hot consulting commodity, and he’s specifically been in the pension industry dealing with qualified plans and ERISA for most of his career.
“The majority of my professional time is devoted to helping TPAs, as well as assisting firms that partner with TPAs,” he added.
Prior to USVI Pensions, Carpenter founded the Technical Answer Group, now owned by Wolters Kluwer.
“Subscribers had the ability to ask our attorneys and actuaries pension-related questions. We answered about 300 questions a day from other professionals. We did it by developing a database and cataloging the questions that came in.”
You might think regurgitated questions eventually got boring and routine—and you’d be wrong.
“We’d get one specific question about every 12 months, and quite frankly I was surprised the second time it came in, but it was ‘What happens if the beneficiary of a retirement plan murders the participant?” he said with an incredulous laugh. “We got the question about 12 or 13 times in total.”
Starting out in the late 1970s, he worked hard, did whatever was asked and made the people he worked for a “bunch of money.”
Two years later, his boss had him research a new portion of the Internal Revenue Code, Section 401k and make recommendations about how to operate that part of the firm.
“Ted Benna came out with the first 401k in January of 1981 and we had four before the end of that year. In 1982, things just went crazy, because we had that experience.”
Today, companies appreciate his unique perspective, which he attributes to “where I live and being old. An insurance company executive recently told me he appreciated that I was the only person not afraid to tell him he was full of it. I’ve sold 401ks, I’ve been a TPA, and I’ve run businesses where I had to make payroll. I get it.”
He then told us that, given his locale, he was off to enjoy a rum-based drink. We’d say it’s well-deserved.
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
