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Richard S. Morris opened the Hawaii office for the Benefit Capital Group in 1988 after moving from Colorado where he had, some 22 years earlier, created a highly successful, multi-state financial planning organization and subsequently sold it to CIGNA Financial Services as part of his relocation to Hawaii.
Mr. Morris holds a B.B.A. and an M.B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, where he taught for two years in the School of Business while working towards a Ph.D. He has instructed a course at the University of Hawaii about employee stock ownership plans and has been asked to teach a somewhat broader course about business succession planning at Hawaii Pacific University. He has served on the national board of directors of the American Society of Financial Service Professionals. He was for many years the vice chairman of the Employee Ownership and Participation Advisory Committee for the State of Hawaii and is vice president of the Hawaii Chapter of The ESOP Association of America. He has been a member of the Hawaii Bar Subcommittee on Probate and Estate and Gift Taxation, a board member of the Hawaii Estate Planning Council, and a director for the University of Colorado Foundation board.
Deeply involved in his community, Dick, as he is known by his friends, has been many times elected to his Neighborhood Board, a type of town council that facilitates community and governmental interaction, engaged with many environmental groups, and is a board member for the historic Hawaii Theatre Center -- in an effort to successfully renovate this popular performing arts venue, to help stimulate the redevelopment of Downtown/Chinatown, and to support the broader pursuit of arts education through board membership with the Honolulu Arts and Cultural Improvement District.
In anticipation of his April 2004 visit to Alaska, he was interviewed by Alaska Business Monthly about the focus of his talks to the Anchorage and Fairbanks Estate Planning Councils, "The Role of ESOPs in Succession Planning". | 