Brad joined Cowden in 2010 and, in 2012, became a shareholder of the firm. He is now vice president of actuarial services.
While Brad has been serving retirement plans of all types throughout his career, his primary focus involves Taft-Hartley funds and certain large government entities, providing them with valuation and consulting services. As an actuary, he is not just adept in providing accurate results, but also in the strategic, individualized consulting that helps clients to understand the situations surrounding their benefit programs; this focus has repeatedly resulted in the achievement of desired outcomes.
Brad builds strong relationships that support understanding and lead to achievement of client goals. He develops appropriate strategies and studies to address the complex issues his clients face. To facilitate better communication of current and potential future situations, he has developed proprietary projection tools, including ZoneCast for multiemployer pension plans, to project funding situations under various plan design, contribution, and economic assumptions and PenCast for single-employer pension plans, to project contribution and accounting results under changing economic and demographic assumptions, as well as plan terminations situations.
For one client in particular, Brad used his expertise to help restructure the design of their pension plan with an outlook on significant levels of work so that the Union membership would be both incentivized and rewarded for large amounts of overtime.
Brad has spoken at American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries (ASPPA) and Worldwide Employee Benefits Network (WEB) conferences and been a panelist in the Annual Public Pension Summit hosted by Allegheny County. At the request of Union clients, Brad has spoken on several occasions to large groups regarding current and projected pension funding. He has also led continuing education sessions on pension plans for several accounting firms and investment advisory groups.
Brad is an Enrolled Actuary (EA), an Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA), and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries (MAAA). Brad is a graduate of Grove City College.