Community Leadership Awards finalists announced

The Invest in Others Charitable Foundation and InvestmentNews have announced the finalists for the seventh annual Community Leadership Awards. The awards, which will be presented Sept. 19, honor financial advisers who make a difference in their communities. Awards will be presented in four individual categories and one group category: Volunteer of the Year Award, Volunteer Team Award, Community Service Award, Global Community Impact Award and Mentoring Excellence Award. The Invest in Others Charitable Foundation and InvestmentNews received more than 200 nominations for this year's awards. In the Volunteer of the Year category, the adviser finalists are Hatim Smouni of Merrill Lynch in Little Rock, Ark., for the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute; Michael J. Swallow of CBIZ Financial Services in Cleveland, Ohio, for NEOPAT; and Debra Brennan Tagg of Brennan Financial Services in Addison, Texas, for United Way of Metropolitan Dallas. For the Volunteer Team Award, the adviser finalists are Chris Kittrell of Rather & Kittrell Inc. in Knoxville, Tenn., for Mission of Hope; John L. McKeever III of Financial Advisors of Delaware Valley in Conshohocken, Penn., for the Committee to Benefit the Children; and Van Mason and Amy Treat of StoneRidge Wealth Management in Portland, Ore., for StoneRidge Foundation. In the Community Service category, the adviser finalists are Bruce E. Fyfe of ProVise Management Group LLC in Clearwater, Fla., for Homeless Emergency Project Inc.; Craig W. Henderson of C.W. Henderson & Associates Inc. in Chicago, for Chicago International Charter School; and Brian Keith Moon of West Texas Investment Advisors/SCF Securities in Plainview, Texas, for Hale Center Emergency Medical Service. In the Global Community Impact category, the adviser finalists are Larry Agee of True North Asset Management in Lake Charles, La., for Disaster Aid USA; Bob Condon of Foundation Investment Group in Berkeley, Calif., for Community Partners International; and Jessica Jones of Edward Jones in The Woodlands, Texas, for Build Your House on the Rock Ministries. In the Mentoring Excellence category, the adviser finalists are David L. Grey of Grey Investments LLC in Beverly, Mass., for Children's Friend & Family Services; Brett W. Hoge of BB&T Scott & Stringfellow in Winston-Salem, N.C., for Big Brothers Big Sisters (Winston-Salem); and Jeffrey L. Rotsky of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management in Cleveland, Ohio, for the Rotsky Foundation for Mentors. The Invest in Others Charitable Foundation will donate $20,000 to the charity designated by each category's honoree. It will also donate $5,000 to each of the finalists' charities. The awards ceremony will be held at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York. Proceeds from the awards dinner will go to the Boston-based Invest in Others Charitable Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) charity that supports philanthropic and volunteer activities among advisers in the United States. This year's keynote speaker will be Maj. Dan Rooney, USAF (Ret.), founder of Folds of Honor, which provides scholarships and other assistance to the spouses and children of soldiers killed or disabled in the service of our country. The organization focuses on the needs of the more than one million Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation New Dawn dependents who need assistance.