Scholarships Established by MARPS President and Spouse Invest in University of Delaware Students
For more than a decade, MidAtlantic Retirement Planning Specialist President, Thom Shumosic, CFP®, AIF®, and his wife Stephanie have supported the University of Delaware and its students.
In 2007, the Thomas F. (‘06) and Stephanie A. Shumosic Athletic Scholarship was established and is awarded each year to a first-generation college attendee who participates in Intercollegiate Athletics. The 2017-2018 recipient was Kevin Anderson, a basketball player from Williamsport, PA, who is now a sophomore guard on the team.
“I’m a lifelong supporter of the athletic programs at the University of Delaware. Growing up in Newark, it was easy to root for all of the Blue Hen teams, particularly football, basketball and baseball,” said Thom Shumosic, 2006 alumnus of university. “My dad is also a graduate, and my two daughters are currently undergraduates at the UD so our family bleeds blue and gold!”
In an effort to create more diversity and inclusion in the financial planning industry, the Shumosics established a second scholarship in late 2018 called the Thomas F. (‘06) and Stephanie A. Shumosic Scholarship for the Financial Planning and Wealth Management Major at the University of Delaware. This scholarship will be awarded to minority student or a female student majoring in the Lerner College’s Financial Planning and Wealth Management Program. This scholarship is still in the fundraising phase.
This scholarship is particularly important to the financial planning industry because women represent only 15.7% of the financial planning industry, and according a 2018 survey conducted by CFP Board Center for Financial Planning, less than 3.5% of all the 80,000 certified financial planners (CFP®) the U.S. are black or Latino — just 2,700 in total. The research findings suggest that attracting more blacks and Latinos to the financial planning profession, and making the CFP® certification more appealing among these groups, will require earlier exposure to the profession in part through financial literacy initiatives (54 percent); increased awareness of the career as a professional path (51 percent); more formal mentoring programs for prospective CFP® professionals (56 percent); and more diversity hiring programs at firms (34 percent).
Thom received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware in 2006 and is a member of the University’s Advisory Board for the Financial Planning Major. Thom previously served the University of Delaware Alumni Association as an Executive Board member. In 2015, Thom was inducted into the Alumni Wall of Fame which recognizes outstanding professional and public service achievements by University of Delaware graduates.
MidAtlantic Retirement Specialists President, Thom Shumosic, Named 2019 Financial Times 401 Top Retirement Advisors
We are thrilled to announce that Thom Shumosic, CFP®, AIF®, has been designated as “401 Top Advisor 2019” by Financial Times. This is the 9th time Thom has been named among this elite group of advisors.
This list recognizes the top financial advisors who specialize in serving defined contribution (DC) retirement plans, such as 401(k) and 403(b) plans, across the U.S. Candidates were graded on six criteria: DC assets under management; DC plan growth rate; specialization in DC plans; years of experience; advanced industry credentials; and compliance record.
Applicants were required to advise on at least $75m in DC plan assets (an increase from last year’s $50m) and have at least 20 percent of their client assets in DC plans. The final FT 401 list represents an impressive cohort of elite advisors: the “average” advisor in this year’s FT 401 has 20 years of experience advising DC plans and advises $1.26 billion in DC plan assets. FT 401 advisors hail from 38 states and Washington, D.C., and DC plans on average account for 81% of their practices’ total assets.
You can read more about the FT401 list criteria here.
