Integrity.
Experience.
Transparency.

Jim is the President of AmRET, a member of the Callan Independent Adviser Group. His career began at VALIC in 1993 where he was named National Rookie of the Year. He then served as Vice President of Pension Service Company before agreeing to become SVP and Senior Institutional Consultant for Morgan Stanley where he served clients for nearly ten years. Jim’s experiences and vision led him to join the Callan IAG when the opportunity presented itself in July of 2019. 

He is recognized for being innovative, knowledgeable and dedicated to providing an exceptional customer service experience. He is responsible for leading all the firm’s investment advisory services. Jim has represented the endorsed retirement programs for the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), the American Hospital Association (AHA), the Georgia Hospital Association (GHA), the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE), Association County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG), and the National Association of Counties (NACo) among others. 

Jim earned his BBA degree from the J. Mack Robinson School of Business at Georgia State University in 1984. He is a Chartered Retirement Plan Specialist (CRPS) and Registered Investment Adviser through his affiliation with Cambridge Investment Research, Inc. and holds FINRA Series 6, 7, 26, 63 and 66 securities licenses as well as Life Insurance and Annuity designations. Over the years, he has served on many boards that support community and ministry related activities. Jim is married to his wife Cindy and they have three children and five grandchildren.

For over 40 years, Paul has been serving as a consultant in the institutional retirement plan sector. He has served as the lead consultant for several state retirement funds including Nevada, Arkansas, Texas, Vermont, and Utah. In this capacity, Paul was responsible for custodial selection, asset liability modeling, fund manager selection, fiduciary education, performance monitoring and reporting, and handled special projects requested by clients. His extensive experience in serving the institutional marketing sector makes him an invaluable member of the AmRET team. 

Paul is Executive Vice President and Senior Institutional Consultant at AmRET. He served in key leadership positions with Callan Associates for over 25 years prior to joining AmRET in Callan’s Independent Adviser Group. Additionally, Paul was a member of the Callan Associates Manager Search Committee for over a decade. Prior to working at Callan, he was a Principal at Mercer Asset Planning for eight years. He also worked as an investment consultant with the Funds Evaluation Group at A. G. Becker. Paul earned his MS in industrial management from the University of Tennessee, his MS in chemistry from Emory University, and his BS in chemistry from Purdue University.

Neal has spent most of his career as a securities analyst, economist, and investment advisor for noted Wall Street firms such as Sanford C. Bernstein, Interstate Securities, Scott & Stringfellow, and Morgan Stanley. Neal serves as Chief Investment Officer for AmRET and leads the firm’s investment analysis and research efforts for its clients. 

Over the nearly forty years he has been in the financial services industry, Neal has honed his analytical skills and is proficient in solving complex problems and running sophisticated financial software programs that facilitate trustee research requests and reporting. He has conducted numerous studies of funds and portfolios and presented the results of such studies to plan sponsor boards and committees in clearly understandable form. 

He has also performed manager searches and implemented manager changes, when appropriate. In his role as an investment advisor he has worked with a broad range of governmental and private sector entities. Neal prides himself on his ability to respond quickly and intelligently to situations that arise unexpectedly and to develop communications and ad hoc reports to address such extenuating circumstances as they may arise for clients. 

Mr. Kaplan is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). He earned a B.A. degree in History and Political Science from the University of Rochester and a M.S. in Management from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has served on the Board of Directors for Criterion Biosciences and as CFO of Excision Bio Therapeutics. We are very proud to have Neal on our team.