Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) members Andrew Gricks, Stephen Lowry, Mark Milner, Greg Tindall and James Kenny have been honoured at the first of the FPA’s 2012 Best Practice Awards, at an event held on Friday in Brisbane.
The FPA is staging a series of events around the country to mark its twentieth anniversary. The events feature technical workshops and recognition of the best and the brightest among the FPA’s 8,000 members. The Melbourne event takes place this Friday, November 16, with events in Adelaide, Sydney and Perth to follow. Professional Planner is the official media partner to the events.
Gricks, managing director of FINPAC Financial Advisors in Townsville, received the FPA’s Distinguished Service Award, reflecting almost 30 years of “strong and insightful leadership within the financial planning industry”. Gricks has been a member of the FPA since its inception in 1992; and the FPA says the distinguished service award is designed to “honour the work of FPA members who have gone above and beyond the call of duty”.
Lowry was presented with the Future2 Community Service Best Practice Award. He is a founding member of the Mackay Foundation, a charitable organisation that supports the Mackay community. Specifically, Lowry, a partner in the planning firm Alman Partners, provides pro bono financial planning services to the foundation.
Milner took out the AFP Best Practice Award, an award for financial planners with the Associate Financial Planner (AFP) designation who are working towards attaining Certified Financial Planner (CFP) status.
The award recognises what the FPA described as Milner’s “professional and honest approach to financial planning, the superior quality of the advice he demonstrated and the excellent progress made so far in his journey to become a Certified Financial Planner”. Milner works with Tupicoffs in Brisbane.
Tindall, from Macquarie Private Wealth in Noosaville, was named runner-up in the CFP Professional Best Practice Award and was highly commended by the FPA for his work with clients.
The CFP Professional Best Practice Award winner was James Kenny (pictured receiving his award), another representative of Tupicoffs in Brisbane. The FPA said that Kenny believes a “client-first business culture is essential and he and his colleagues focus on how they can help clients deliver more value and better outcomes”.
