The Financial Planning Standards Council (FPSC) has honoured four members of the School of Administrative Studies (SAS) in York's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies by naming them among 33 inaugural fellows of the FPSC.

Honoured are York Professors Joanne Magee and Chris Robinson, grad Alan Golhar and course director Jury Kopach for their contributions to the financial planning profession in Canada. 

The FPSC governs the examination and conferral of the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) mark in Canada, under license from the Financial Planning Standards Board in the US. 

Magee, who is cross-appointed to both SAS and the School of Public Policy & Administration, is an authority on income tax in Canada and has written and lectured extensively on various topics in income tax law and tax policy. She has conducted free tax clinics and trained her students to work in them for many years as a public service. She is a member of the Certification Scheme Committee of the FPSC.

Robinson teaches finance in SAS. He has taught all three financial planning courses, security valuation, ethics for investment managers and financial statement analysis. His financial planning textbook, co-authored with SAS Professor Kwok Ho, is used across Canada in universities and community colleges. He has won numerous awards for his financial planning research papers.

Alan Goldhar (BAS ’85) is the chief investment officer of the Ontario Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee, where he is responsible for a staff of planners and social workers managing $1.2 billion in trust accounts. He teaches introductory and professional financial planning at SAS, mentors our students and also teaches at Ryerson University. He is on the board of the FPSC Foundation.

Jury Kopach has worked for 38 years at increasingly senior levels in National Trust and T.E. Financial as a fee-for-service planner, manager and educator. Just when he thought he had retired, Robinson persuaded him to teach in SAS. Now a course director, Kopach teaches all three levels of the planning courses, as well as mentoring many students and teaching at Seneca College. He is on the board of the FPSC Foundation.

In addition to the four current members, a former financial planning course director at SAS, Peter Volpé, has also been named a fellow. Volpé is the senior vice-president of Integra Capital and chairperson of the FPSC Foundation.

Republished courtesy of YFile– York University’s daily e-bulletin.