Highland’s Consultants

A Unique Blend of Knowledge & Experience

Our firm is populated by professionals that share a common passion for advancing new, more meaningful ways to support client plans and are quick to reject ineffectual approaches that only remain due to industry lethargy and inertia.  Several of our core team members started their careers as consulting actuaries and we take great pride in our ability to distill complex concepts into meaningful, client-accessible terms.

Our professionals each have over 20 years of direct experience. Highland’s consultants include 3 consulting actuaries that spent years designing plans and communicating complex concepts.   Two of our staff had client-side responsibility for over $3 billion of plan assets and another has designed and delivered large-scale institutional products and services for one of the largest service providers in the industry.

William S. Small, ASA, CIMA

Principal

Bill Small is a co-founder & Principal of Highland Capital Advisors, LLC., a Registered Investment Advisory firm.

Prior to forming Highland, Bill was a Director for Merrill Lynch's Retirement Capital Strategies Group. In this capacity, Bill managed a multi-office team of Consultants and Relationship Managers that advised some of Merrill's largest plan sponsors (over $50 Billion in combined plan assets). He was also responsible for the group's business development efforts, and for setting the strategic direction for the defined benefit business.

Bill has extensive experience with all forms of qualified & non-qualified retirement programs and related financial management matters.

Bill received his Bachelors Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Central Washington University. Bill is a Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA), an Associate in the Society of Actuaries (ASA), an Enrolled Actuary (EA), a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries (MAAA) and has held a variety of security licenses.

Richard C. Wyman

Principal

Rick Wyman is a co-founder & Principal of Highland Capital Advisors, LLC., a Registered Investment Advisory firm.

Prior to joining Highland, Rick was the Senior Vice President, CFO and a Principal of Wurts & Associates. Rick has over 22 years of investment experience working with institutional investors primarily located up and down the West Coast. While at Wurts & Associates, Rick worked with a broad range of clients, including endowments and foundations, Taft-Hartley plans, public funds, hospital and corporate plans. Rick continues to work with clients to develop and implement investment strategies including asset allocation studies, manager searches, performance measurement and various technical projects. Rick has worked with many of the regions most recognizable firms.

Prior to his full-time involvement as a Consultant at Wurts & Associates, Mr. Wyman was responsible for all the mutual fund and separate manager search activity and pioneered the manager search process used by the firm's in house research team. He has personally conducted over 250 investment manager and mutual fund searches on behalf of clients.

Rick earned his undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Accounting from Ohio Wesleyan University. Rick is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA-inactive), a member of the Washington State Society of Certified Public Accountants (WSCPA), a member of the Western Pension Conference and has held a variety of security licenses.

Randall L. Doser, FSA, CFA

Senior Consultant

Randall Doser joined Highland Capital Advisors in February of 2011. A Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA), Chartered Financial Analyst charter holder (CFA), an Enrolled Actuary (inactive) and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries, he has a strong background in the mathematics of finance and extensive experience in the legal and accounting aspects of benefit plan liabilities and assets.

Before joining Highland, Randall was Vice President at Compass Advisors, LLC for 9 years where he consulted to institutional and high net worth investors and provided technical expertise to the company's fund of funds affiliate. Prior to Compass, he spent three years as the Manager of Benefit Investments inside the Treasury department of Freightliner LLC, overseeing the company's $900 million portfolio of pension, 401 (k) and retiree medical assets.

Prior to Freightliner, he spent three years with the consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide in their Portland and Minneapolis offices doing retiree medical and defined benefit retirement plan valuation and design for employers ranging in size from 12 to 60,000+ employees. Previous to 1995 he was an associate consultant with Howard Johnson & Company in Portland, Oregon doing defined contribution and defined benefit retirement plan design, administration and valuation for small to mid size companies. Randall graduated in 1990 with highest scholarship from Oregon State University with a B.S. in Mathematical Sciences.

Ward M. Harris

Director

Ward assists in the design, development and delivery of research, content and training resources for plan fiduciaries, employee/participants and other stakeholders.

A native of Seattle, Ward has had management roles at Charles Schwab, Union Bank and Rogescasey. In almost thirty years of service to institutional and fiduciary clients, he has led, managed and contributed personally to his team's work in investment consulting, strategic planning, product development, operations, marketing and business development.

He has led the creation of products, services, content and educational tools for institutional and individual investors. Emerging and proven technologies have been central to Ward's contributions to his employers and clients over the last twenty years, beginning with daily valuation 401(k) administration software, open-architecture fund investment access, scalable and safe self-directed brokerage accounts as plan investment options, mutual fund revenue sharing and accountability in retirement plan administration, and development of "revenue / expense reimbursement accounts" to help plan clients reduce their costs.

Kent Grether

Senior Consultant

Kent joined Highland Capital in 2009 as a Senior Consultant. Based in the firm's Portland office, Kent brings over 30 years of pension and investment industry experience to his role in helping Highland's clients manage their investment programs.

Prior to joining Highland, Kent was Vice President of Wilshire Associates working with that firm's consulting and investment-outsourcing clients, where clients ranged from $100 million to many billions. He had previously been a Managing Director at two equity investment management firms, Hotchkis & Wiley, and McKinley Capital where he led the business development and client relations for the Western United States. Kent brings a strong ability to "walk in the shoes" of our clients, having been the Chief Investment Manager of the electric utility, PacifiCorp. There he oversaw $2 billion in assets, including defined benefit plans, 401(k) plans, VEBAs, ESOPs and environmental trusts. In his role at PacifiCorp, he also served as an Advisory Board member of venture capital firms and as a Trustee for a Taft-Hartley pension plan.

Kent began his career as a consulting pension actuary and retirement plan consultant. Kent advised corporate and non-profit clients on plan design, administration, compliance, and funding of their defined benefit, 401(k), 403(b), ESOP, profit sharing, and executive plans. In that role, Kent was an Enrolled Actuary and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. Kent earned dual bachelor's degrees in Math and Economics from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Clint Benson

Regional Director of Business Development

Clint joined Highland from Arnerich Massena and Associates where he led the creation of new client relationships. For over 11 years, he worked with trustees and boards responsible for the oversight of corporate, non-profit and public sector retirement programs.

Clint works closely with fiduciary investors and their professional advisors - attorneys, auditors and administrators - and has long been actively involved with the Western Pension and Benefits Conference and the National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators (NAGDCA).

Previously, he served corporate clients through commercial real estate investment brokerage, leasing and property management. As vice president at CB Richard Ellis, an international commercial real estate firm, he focused on corporate real estate leasing and investment sales. Clint holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Oregon State University and lives in Northeast Portland with his wife and children.

David S. Rowe, CPC, QKA, QPA

Senior Consultant

Dave is a Senior Consultant for Highland Capital Advisors, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisory firm.

Since 1988, Dave has been advising institutional and individual investors seeking to experience more abundance and financial security. Highland enables Dave to continue his consulting legacy free of influence or conflicts of interest.

Prior to joining Highland, Dave developed a National defined contribution consulting practice for a Fortune 500 consulting firm and bank, expanded market share for a Fortune 100 insurance company and has continuously developed ways to improve fiduciary performance through improved individual outcomes.

Dave has extensive experience with all aspects of qualified and nonqualified retirement plans including their legal, operational and financial frameworks.

David received his mathematics degree from the University of Washington and earned his Certified Pension Consultant (CPC), Qualified Plan Administrator (QPA) and Qualified 401(k) Administrator (QKA) designations from the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries (ASPPA). Dave has also passed his FINRA Series 7, 63 and 65 examinations as well as his Life, Disability and Variable lines insurance licenses.

Dave is the President of the ASPPA Benefits Council (ABC) of the Great Northwest, Vice-President and Finance Committee Chair of Washington's National Park Fund, and is a former Board member of the Western Pension & Benefits Conference.