To anyone who has worked with us (either as an employee or as a client), you know that the bulk of our staff holds a tenure that soars into the double digits. To anyone else who is reading this article you will also know that that doesn't happen often in today's working world. With 40 years under our belt, we've got a few things right over the years and I've leaned into our amazing veteran staff to help me tell the story.
ABG Rocky Mountain started off just like any other mom & pop shop - with big ambitions and a small staff of even more ambitious employees.
It all started on April 1st, 1980 when Dennis Zobell and his wife Cher Zobell founded the company (what was then called Rocky Mountain Pension Services). 10 years and one merger later, the company transitioned into Rocky Mountain Employee Benefits, Inc. with the goal of expanding its services to cover Defined Benefits and Cafeteria Plans. It's safe to say that at this point they were doing pretty well for themselves as the company had become one of the largest TPA providers in Utah.
In 1997, Rocky Mountain Employee Benefits joined ABG National. The reverse franchise allowed the company to receive better pricing and leverage in the industry. With this change came its current name, Alliance Benefit Group Rocky Mountain (ABGRM).
With Dennis's retirement came an opportunity to shift the structure of the organization. Today, there are 5 owners of the company - Chris Mautz, Jeff Zobell, Dallin Zobell, Larry Solomon, and Shawn Oram. This shift happened in December of 2010.
Our Recordkeeping services have allowed us to ease the responsibilities held by our advisors to manage and maintain their Retirement Plan practices.
We may have downsized in sq. ft. but our new location has given us the professional look and feel that our then-current space did not. In the change, we were also able to explore the transition of moving some of our workforces from in-house to working remotely. We know a lot of organizations are fearful to make the switch but we couldn't be happier with the work that our remote employees are doing.
Owner, Jeff Zobell, decided to move his family to Denver, CO to grow the business in that area.
Now with a team of 3 (and growing!), we have expanded our business and have laid down some deep roots for the next decade to come.
Over our 40 years in business, we are proud that we have been able to take care of our staff during their times of need. Creating changes in our operations to help allow a team member to work from home so they can watch their family grow, joining together to pay the COBRA premiums so that a tenured employee can retire and receive health insurance, and taking care of employees who have unexpected illnesses so that they don't have to worry about their families. This is at the heart of what we do and we are extremely proud of the impact we have been able to have in the lives of those we work with.
With both of them being such big banks (with a large presence) it allowed us to get acknowledged by the communities that they worked with. Doing administration and recordkeeping services for them allowed us to grow exponentially, transitioning us from a mom & pop shop to the professional organization that we are today. It is also where we started our SOC1 reporting.
As we grew over the years, so did our breadth of services that we offered.Our Managed Account solution has helped (and is continuing to help) advisors to more efficiently offer personalized asset allocations. We have been able to personalize the investment strategies based on the participant's unique financial situation, their risk tolerance, their outside holdings, and their retirement goals.
Our 3(16) fiduciary solution has helped plan sponsors navigate the complexities of their plan operation with things like plan distributions, withdrawals, reporting, and more.
We are so proud of what we have been able to accomplish over these last 40 years.
The number of amazing team members we have been able to work with, the relationships we have been able to make, and the impact we have been able to have in the lives of those we work with - we don't take a day for granted.
Looking ahead, we have set some pretty lofty goals for ourselves. They are the kind of goals that make Monday's feel like Friday's. They are the kind of goals that get us out of bed in the morning with our running shoes on ready to sprint. What are we up to you ask? Well, you'll just have to wait and see.
Cheers to the next decade and all the birthdays in-between.
