456 Fulton Street, Suite 345 - Peoria, Illinois 61602    |    Ph: 309-671-4200    |    Fax: 309-671-9933
70 West Madison Street, Suite 1400 - Chicago, Illinois 60602    |    Ph: 312-214-3191
Our Leadership

{Alliance Benefit Group}

   

 

John D. Blossom, Jr. MSPA, PPC™, RF™, CBC - Chief Executive Officer/President

Mr. Blossom is founder of Alliance Benefit Group, LLC a retirement plan service organization with fourteen regional locations. Each ABG office is independently owned and operated to offer regional service to retirement plans and advisors. As a national enterprise, Alliance Benefit Group administers more than ten billion dollars in retirement plan assets.

Blossom is president and CEO of Alliance Benefit Group of Illinois, Inc., headquartered in Peoria, Illinois, with branch offices in Chicago, Illinois and Madison, Wisconsin. The firm serves over 600 retirement plans with more than 35,000 participants in 42 states with assets of more than $1.5 billion from the ABG headquarters in Peoria.

John has been in the benefits field over 40 years. He is a MSPA - Member of the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries. He is a CLU and life member of the life insurance industry's Million Dollar Round Table. He is a founder of Retirement Advisors and Designers of America (RADA) a resource-sharing group of retirement plan professionals with a history of meeting for over thirty-five years.

Blossom earned the Professional Plan Consultant™ (PPC™) designation in 2006 through Financial Service Standards, LLC. Blossom was certified as a Registered Fiduciary™ by DALBAR, Inc. The Registered Fiduciary™ (RF™) designation identifies financial professionals as knowledgeable fiduciaries that have achieved pertinent educational qualifications and licenses, learned required skills, and have passed a background check. In October, 2009 Blossom successfully completed the Cash Balance Consultant Certification Program and was granted the designation of Cash Balance Consultant (CBC).

John serves as a member of the Steering Committee of the Society of Plan Asset-Managers and Record Keepers (SPARK), The Charles Schwab Trust & Advisory Board and Council of Independent 401(k) Recordkeepers (CIkR).

Blossom attended the University of Colorado, majoring in economics and finance and earned the Master of Business Administration degree from the Graduate Theological Foundation in January 1995. He has served as a faculty member of several retirement plan education programs and as a speaker at many national and regional industry events.

john.blossom@abgemail.com

 

Daphne M. Weitzel, CPC, QPA, PPC™ - Senior Vice President and Consultant

Daphne M. Weitzel is Senior Vice President and Consultant with Alliance Benefit Group of Illinois. In this role, Ms. Weitzel provides executive leadership as a member of the Board of Directors and is a lead technical expert in all aspects of the Alliance Benefit Group retirement services. Ms. Weitzel is an experienced consultant and holds the designations of Certified Plan Consultant (CPC), Qualified Pension Administrator (QPA), and Pension Plan Consultant(PPC™).

Daphne's twenty-four years with Alliance Benefit Group has provided her with a variety of leadership opportunities including Chief Operations Officer. Through her tenure, she has developed an in depth understanding of both the technical and operational standards necessary to maintain the highest quality retirement services. Ms. Weitzel's varied background in administration, recordkeeping operations, and consulting provided the perfect foundation for her recent transition into an executive leadership role focused on strategic expansion of services with emphasis on qualified and non-qualified retirement plan solutions including defined benefit, cash balance, ESOP, 401(k) and 403(b) plans.

Daphne is an active member in the American Society of Pension Plan Professionals and Actuaries (ASPPA), where she has served on various committees including Education & Examination. She also is active with Women in Pensions and periodically serves as a guest speaker on design and administration topics.

daphne.weitzel@abgemail.com

 

Linda Byrne Blossom, Trustee for ESOP, AIFA®, PPC™; - Senior Consultant and Vice President

Linda B. Blossom is Vice President in charge of Investment Services for Alliance Benefit Group of Illinois. She leads the team that provides investment advisory and consulting services to the firms' defined contribution plan clients and intermediary relationships. She oversees the firms' Registered Investment Advisory (RIA) services to its retirement plan clients as its Chief Compliance Officer. Linda is an accredited Investment Fiduciary Analyst™ (AIFA™) and Professional Plan Consultant™ (PPC™).

Linda has over 30 years experience in the qualified retirement plan arena having started her career with the firm in 1974. Her past experience has ranged from defined contribution plan design to Participant communication services and now, investment services. She is a member of several profession/industry related organizations including Retirement Administrators and Designers of America (RADA), Profit Sharing/401k Council of America (PSCA), SPARK (Society of Professional Asset Managers and Record Keepers) and National Association of Professional Women (NAPW). She is a member of the firm's corporate Board of Directors serving as its Secretary and serves as Recording Secretary on the Board of Alliance Benefit Group, LLC (national organization).

Linda oversees the firm's experienced Investment Services Team as they assist defined contribution plan clients in meeting their fiduciary responsibilities to the Plan and Participants through the fund selection and regular monitoring processes. Specific due diligence criteria is applied as outlined in a written Investment Policy Statement developed and implemented for each client. Monitoring reports are provided quarterly and review meetings are scheduled at least annually.

linda.blossom@abgemail.com

 

Michael A. Price - Cheif Operating Office/Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Price was hired by ABG in March 2010 to be the company's CFO, and soon added the COO responsibilities as well. In his role, Mr. Price oversees the financial affairs of the company and is responsible for its daily financial and operational performance. He is also involved in helping to set the firm's strategic directions and is a member of the ABG Board of Directors.

Mr. Price has almost twenty-five years of management experience, fifteen of which have been in an executive capacity. In addition, he has spent most of his career in the financial services industry. Price graduated from Illinois State University with a Bachelors of Science degree in Business - Finance and earned his Masters of Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis.

michael.price@abgemail.com

 

Teresa D. Wood, QKA, ARPS - Senior Vice President

Teresa Wood is Sr. Vice President of Information Systems for Alliance Benefit Group of Illinois. She leads the teams that provide network administration, website maintenance, help desk, global communications, and social media assistance to our associates and clients. Teresa is a Qualified 401(k) Administrator (QKA) and an Accredited Retirement Plan Specialist (ARPS).

Teresa has over 20 years of experience in pension administration having started her career with the firm in 1988. Her past experience has ranged from Daily Plan Services and Operations and she is now in charge of strategic planning for the firm. In this role, she is key to the firm staying in line with industry trends and developing the processes needed to implement and achieve the desired outcomes.

Teresa oversees the firm's help desk and website teams as they assist our clients and our clients' Plan Participants prepare for their retirement. The expertise in our help desk assist Participants in navigating the participant website and Voice Response Unit. The top notch web design team allows us to customize our Participant, Plan Sponsor and Financial Advisor web sites as needed; as well as orchestrate our many web resources available to Participants and Plan Sponsors.

teresa.wood@abgemail.com

 

Beverly D. Alleman, PPC™, ARPS, ARPC - Vice President of Marketing Services

Ms. Alleman is Vice President of Sales and Marketing Services. In this role, Bev manages a team of consultants and sales people in all aspects of retirement plan design and sales. The Sales Consultant Team is responsible for developing and supporting intermediary relationships with RIA's, Financial Advisors, CPA's, Attorney's and Bank Trust Departments to assist in delivering retirement plan, daily valued recordkeeping and third party plan administration services.

Bev is no stranger to the retirement plan industry having spent 25 plus years as a plan administrator, plan implementation and conversion manager and a sales consultant which taught her the importance of delivery of service expectations. She enjoys coaching advisors and sales associates on the services to be delivered to Plan Sponsors and the importance of setting the service expectation standard. Bev has found that by managing the expectations you reap happy, long standing clients.

Bev is a qualified Pension Plan Consultant (PPC™), an Accredited Retirement Plan Specialist (ARPS) and an Accredited Retirement Plan Consultant (ARPC). She has served her local community as a past officer of the Heart of Illinois Employee Benefits Forum and is now a founding member of a national organization, Women in Pensions.

beverly.alleman@abgemail.com

 

Anita J. Megyesi - Vice President of Daily Operations

Ms. Megyesi is an Accredited Retirement Plan Specialist (ARPS). She has over 20 years of accounting experience in varied commercial environments. She has been with Alliance Benefit Group of Illinois for over 10 years. She manages and supports our operations team who perform the daily tasks of investing, balancing and reconciling for over 400 401(k) Retirement plans. She reviews procedures for continued enhancements while creating and maintaining a cohesive environment with other internal departments. She coordinates the annual SAS70 audit.

anita.megyesi@abgemail.com

 

Erin D. Patton, CPC, QPA, QKA - Vice President of Plan Services

Ms. Patton has nearly 15 years of experience in the employee benefits industry. As Vice President of Plan Services, she oversees Client Services, Compliance and Research Services and Plan Document Services for Daily-valued plans. She is the firm's senior technical advisor for plan design on Defined Contribution plans and specializes in advanced compliance issues. She is an active member of ASPPA, served on The ASPPA Journal committee for several years. She is also active in providing in-house training through courses designed by ASPPA and self-designed coursework.

erin.patton@abgemail.com

 

Michele L. Mooney, CPP - Director of Payroll Services

Ms. Mooney has over 15 years of payroll industry experience and was awarded the Certified Payroll Professional designation in 2009. Areas of experience include payroll management and administration, payroll tax administration, and payroll software training. She is responsible for developing and monitoring all tasks necessary to complete the payroll and tax processing objectives, including relationships with state and federal tax agencies. Ms. Mooney is a member of the American Payroll Association.

michele.mooney@abgemail.com

 

Paul R. Oakford - Director of HSA Services

Mr. Oakford has over 8 years experience in the employee benefits industry. He has worked with employers to evaluate their Health and Welfare plan goals and to provide the solutions needed to help them reach those goals. Specializing in Consumer Directed Health Plan strategies, he works with employers to show them how they and their employees can maximize their tax savings by incorporating programs like Health Savings Accounts, Cafeteria Plans and Health Reimbursement Arrangements into their benefits strategies. He works with Distribution partners all over the country to help them grow their business as they provide ABG solutions to their clients.

paul.oakford@abgemail.com


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