Module Six Bios

Pension Administration—Post Pandemic

J. Scott Baur
Resource Centers
scott@resourcecenters.com

Scott Baur founded the Resource Centers in 1996 to provide plan administration services and technology solutions to public sector pension plans. The Resource Centers also delivers back office support services and technology solutions to in-house plan administration staff to manage pension and benefit plans more effectively. The company offers iRetire, a comprehensive web-based plan administration portal that incorporates an open architecture in the system design. The Resource Centers have since grown to become one of the largest providers of services and technology to pension plans to public sector pension plans in the southeast. Scott is widely known as a professional speaker on plan administration, investment, and cyber topics.  He frequently conducts seminars and workshops for pension trustees, industry professionals, and plan participants.

Scott Baur graduated from Virginia Tech in Architecture, Engineering, and Math.  He also taught in the College of Architecture at Virginia Tech and served as the director for a research center funded by a coalition of government agencies.  During this time, Scott published numerous papers in academic journals. Scott Baur originally trained on public and private sector pension plans through MetLife Resources, where he later participated in the design of MetLife’s pension plans for small employee groups. He has established defined benefit and contribution plans for employees, including defined benefit plans, deferred compensation plans, 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, and voluntary employee benefit associations (VEBA plans), as well as other employee benefit programs.

Cyber Security

John Reidy
Pension Technology Group
john@ptg-usa.com

John R. Reidy is a principal founder of the Pension Technology Group (PTG). Founded in 2006, PTG is a technology company that provides web-based pension administration software solutions to public employee pension funds. In his tenure, John has help oversee nearly 150 pension administration software projects at public employee pension funds throughout the United States. Over 100 of these projects have been for web-based pension administration solutions. For the past 13 years, John has managed the relationship with PTG’s hosting partner Rackspace to ensure the security of PTG’s client data. John has participated in and presented at numerous data security events and conferences geared towards public employees.

John graduated from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C where he studied politics. John is the proud father of a 15-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son and lives in South Boston, MA.

Developments in Custodial Services

Amed Avila
Managing Director

Fiduciary Trust International
aavila@ftci.com

Amed A. Avila, CPPT, Managing Director, has over 15 years of financial services experience. He has in-depth experience managing custodial relationships for individual, trust & estates, corporations, IRAs, Registered Investment Advisors (RIA’s), and municipalities’ public pension plans.  He joined Franklin Templeton Investments, parent company of Fiduciary Trust, in 2005 and has been part of the Fiduciary Trust team since 2007.  Prior to that, Mr. Avila was a relationship account manager at Peachtree Settlement Funding for five years.  He earned a  B.S. in international business with a concentration in finance from Florida Atlantic University and an M.B.A in finance from Nova Southeastern University. Mr. Avila also earned his Certified Public Pension Trustee (CPPT) designation from the Florida Public Pensions Trustee Association (FPPTA) and Georgia Association of Public Pension Trustees (GAPPT), of which he is a member and also currently serves as Affiliate Chair. He also currently sits on the executive board of the Broward Alliance for Neighborhood Development (BAND), a non-profit organization that advocates for affordable housing and community economic development in Broward County where he serves as Treasurer.

Caroline Klancke
Florida Commission on Ethics
klancke.caroline@leg.state.fl.us

Caroline Klancke is an attorney with the Florida Commission on Ethics. Prior to joining the Commission, she served as Chief Ethics Officer and Senior Attorney with the Florida Public Service Commission. Ms. Klancke is a graduate of Florida State University (B.A., cum laude, 2003); and the University of Miami School of Law (J.D., magna cum laude, 2006), where she was a member of the University of Miami International & Comparative Law Review. Ms. Klancke is a member of The Florida Bar and is admitted to practice before the Middle and Northern Districts of Florida. In 2015, the Florida Government Bar Association selected her as a finalist for Government Attorney of the Year.