Stephen A. Schullo, Ph.D. (UCLA ’96) taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for 24 years and UCLA Extension teaching educational technology to student teachers. Steve wrote investment articles for the United Teacher-Los Angeles (UTLA) newspaper for 13 years. Thrice featured retirement plan advocate in the Los Angeles Times and U.S. News and World Report. He co-founded an investor self-help group (403bAware with Sandy Keaton) for teacher colleagues and wrote 6,500 posts in three investment forums since 1997. Frequently quoted by the media, testified at California State legislative hearings and honored with the “Unsung Hero” award by UTLA for his retirement planning advocacy. For the last thirteen years, he served on LAUSD’s Investment Advisory Committee as a “Member-at-Large” and former co-chair. The committee monitors the 457b/403b/PARS of 55,000 former and current LAUSD employees, worth $2.8 billion in total assets
He started this blog in 2012 to help all PreK-12 public school educators nationwide, especially his Los Angeles Unified School District colleagues. He belongs to a small national group of 403(b) advocates (mostly teachers) who want to bring closer attention to the 403(b). During the last 25 years, over 40 newspaper articles have been published and each one says the same thing, TSAs (Tax Sheltered Annuities) are terrible 403(b) plans and the salesperson gets the benefit from lucrative commissions and high costs. Nobody in educational leadership reads these articles NOR talk about the proper place for annuity products publically. We come together at 403bwise.com. Come on over if you want to join us so we can help our colleagues avoid these self-conflicted retirement plans, TSAs.
Because of Steve’s own experiences with being sold two horrible fixed annuities, Steve was so angry he wrote a second book “Fighting Powerful Interests,” devoted to his LAUSD colleagues so they will not have the same fate. Released in 2015, “Fighting Powerful Interests: Educators Challenge Tax-sheltered Annuities and WIN!” A story of how a few LAUSD educators knowing very little about retirement planning ended up with an awarding winning 457(b) plan. It is a free download forever.
Dan Robertson (1941-2015*), Ph.D. (UCLA,’78), Director of the Employment and Training Center for Persons with Disabilities at California State University, Los Angeles, taught Sp. Ed for twenty-eight years: elementary and graduate students. He managed job training programs by writing $3.5M worth of grants, created budgets and maintained financial oversight. With Steve, he was featured in the Los Angeles Times Money Makeover feature in 1996. Dan has twenty-five years of reflection, study and investing experience. Implemented a low-cost 403b plan at a LGBT recovery center.
Dan and Steve were married and have been together for 40 years. They are the authors of their self-published book, “Late Bloomer Millionaires: A Financial Story and Investment Guide for Late Starters.”
*Dan died from cancer on October 20, 2015. But Steve continues this blog to provide financial education for all.