A native New Yorker, Gerry moved to San Francisco in 1991, founding Advice Company after a 20+ year career at Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife®). Among his many key legal and management roles at MetLife, two are most notable. As Head of Investment and Fiduciary Services, he invented and created a $10 billion+ asset management program, MetLife's Total Control Account®. Lauded as "The single most successful corporate asset retention program in the history of the financial services industry" it involved the simple but revolutionary concept of paying life insurance beneficiaries the billions of dollars a year it had been paying by check by sending them a checkbook instead of a check. That enabled the nation's largest life insurer to continue to manage and invest the billions in cash it otherwise would have sent to beneficiaries each year, while providing those beneficiaries with safety, competitive interest rates and time to decide. His background as an attorney enabled him to overcome the immense insurance and banking regulatory obstacles that stood in the way, while his marketing skills were critical in overcoming the natural resistance to change within MetLife itself as well as at its biggest customers – General Motors and the Federal Government – and their employees' unions to accepting a program as radical as this, creating a win-win for everyone.

Gerry then was promoted to Chief Brokerage Executive and President and CEO of MetLife Marketing Corporation, where he built what was, in essence, a new, self-contained, semi-autonomous life insurance company with its own product development, underwriting, medical, marketing and sales organization. Within three years Gerry and his team of 200 profitably produced 15% of MetLife's total new individual life and annuity premium, compared with the 20,000+ MetLife employees that produced the remaining 85%.

An honors graduate of the College of William & Mary and Columbia Law School, Gerry completed Stanford's Graduate School of Business Executive Program as well as the coursework for a Masters at Stanford. A member of the bars of California and New York, he has chaired numerous committees of the American, California State, and NYC Bar Associations, and has spoken on legal and marketing topics throughout North America and in Europe and has testified as an expert before both the US Senate and the House of Representatives.

After serving as a first lieutenant with the Army Security Agency, Gerry began his career as a trial lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he headed the Special Enforcement unit in New York and then spent several years as an associate with a top-rated New York law firm.

He has been President of the Stanford Business School Alumni Association's San Francisco Chapter, a member of the Dean's Advisory Board of the University of San Francisco's School of Business and Management, and a member of the Board of Directors and Advisory Council of Marin Theatre Company. Show Less.

Mary Martin joined Advice Company in 1997 as Executive Editor and head of Staff Operations. She is responsible for developing, sourcing, and editing content for the Company's websites and internal operations. Prior to joining Advice Company, she had a 29-year career as executive editor, manager of practice systems software development, and a corporate officer at legal publisher Commerce Clearing House. She earned a BA from Dominican College.

We acknowledge, with deep gratitude, the many contributions made by our former Technology Director, Woody Phillips, on the occasion of his retirement at year end 2021 after more than 15 years of service. A proud Air Force veteran who had been a senior engineer at Honeywell and Digital Equipment before joining us, Woody remains an active community volunteer and motorcycle enthusiast. We continue to express our admiration and respect for Michael Shanahan, who was our Chief Operating and Technology Officer, and Patti Gima, Esq. our former VP for Content; both served Advice Company and its millions of visitors outstandingly for many years until they left us at year end 2019 upon the sale of our Freeadvice.com unit.

Advice Company has and continues to benefit from the exceptional contribution of a fantastic group of authors from around the country. We are always seeking to expand our stable of authors to write quality content in all of our verticals. If you are a qualified legal, senior care, or financial professional with excellent writing skills, please contact us by email at info@adviceco.com.