Meet the actuaries

Dan Cassidy

FSA, CERA, EA, FCA
President
Cassidy Retirement Group

When Dan Cassidy graduated from Tufts University, he knew he wanted a career that would allow him to put his degree in mathematics to work immediately. He found the perfect match in the actuarial profession.

Starting his career at William M. Mercer and Towers Perrin, eight years later Dan founded Cassidy Retirement Group. As President of the firm, today Dan helps companies with 50-5,000 people invest in and manage retirement programs for their employees, and he recently entered a partnership to begin providing investment advice to larger plan sponsors. He finds identifying retirement solutions for his wide variety of clients to be extremely rewarding. “A lot of our work is with groups and committees, we get to see first hand how people make decisions, “ said Dan. “It’s a real live social science experience.”

While Dan’s mathematics background has undoubtedly played a role in his success, he’s quick to note that a variety of experiences really helped him get where he is today. As a business owner, Dan recognizes that skills outside of those provided by his actuarial profession have been invaluable – whether it’s knowing how to manage large projects, name his company or sell his ideas to companies.

Dan picked up these skills by taking a variety of courses while studying at Tufts. In fact, while math may have been his major, his favorite course was actually German Expressionist Art. “It was just a fun class, learning the art and history of an interesting period of time, pre-World War II,” said Dan. “I would encourage inspiring actuaries to take more art classes or, more broadly, to work on skills like writing, public speaking and powers of persuasion. While the harder skills like math and finance can easily be taught, these other skills take time to develop.” A published author himself, Dan is a reputable source for such advice.

Looking back at his 20 years of varied experiences and thinking about what comes next for the profession, Dan encourages actuaries to continue to bring varied skills to the table. “Actuaries need to continue to update our skills and methods to stay current in today’s complex financial environment,” said Dan, noting that other professions and groups have encroached on actuary’s traditional area of risk management. “We need to stay out in front on this issue, or we'll be relegated to the back room.”