Mark T. Finn has devoted his entire professional career to providing investment services to the business community. He began at Virginia National Bank in 1968 where he rose to Trust Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer. In 1983, he became a member of the State of Virginia Retirement Plan’s Investment Advisory Committee and served as its Chairman from 1990 to 1994. From 1984 to 1994 Mr. Finn also served on the Board of Trustees of the Virginia Retirement System. Mr. Finn is a former Chairman of the Board of Directors of RF&P Corporation, a privately held railroad and real estate company. From 1990 to 1994, Mr. Finn served the Alaska State Retirement System and was Chairman of the Investment Operations Advisory Committee from 1993-1994. He was a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s Advisory Committee on Managed Futures and, from 1996 to 2000, was a member of an advisory board to Rowan & Blewitt Incorporated, an international consulting firm. Mr. Finn served as the Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer for Lindner Asset Management from 1999-2001. Currently Mr. Finn serves on the advisory board of Celtic Pharmaceutical Holdings, a biotech venture capital company, as well as serving as an Independent Trustee of a number of open end funds sponsored by Legg Mason. He is also a member of the Audit, Governance, and Performance & Review Committees of the Boards of these funds. Mr. Finn formerly served as the Chair of the funds’ Performance and Review Committee. He has taught investments at the University of Virginia’s Colgate Darden Graduate Business School and currently teaches at the College of William and Mary’s Mason School of Business, where he received his MBA in 1987. In 1975 he joined the predecessor to the Vantage Consulting Group as an outside consultant and was invited to be Vantage’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in 1986, a capacity in which he continues to serve today.

Articles and Book Chapters

“The Triumph of Hope Over Long-run Experience,” Just One Thing. Ed. John Mauldin. New York, NY: Wiley, 2005. 27-43. (with J. Finn)
"Equity Mispricing: It’s Mostly on the Short Side," Financial Analysts Journal, November/December, 1999. (with R. Fuller and J. Kling)
"Market Neutral Investing," Journal of Financial Planning, September 1998
"Creating ‘Optimally Complex’ Models for Forecasting," Financial Analysts Journal, January-February 1991
(With J. Elder IV)
"Investment Performance of an Extreme Value Market Timing Approach," Journal of Financial Planning, vol. 3, no. 1, 1990. (with J. Stevens)
The Computer Revolution," Pensions & Investment Age, September 13, 1982
"Portfolio Objective: Win big, lose little!," Journal of Portfolio Management, Summer 1982 (with R. Vandell)

Abstracts

"Price-to-Book Valuation Models: Do Equity Measurement Procedures Make a Difference?" Presented at the Eastern Finance Association annual meeting, April, 1988, Bal Harbour, Florida. (with J. Haltiner and R. Hayes)
"Justified Price to Book: A Value Oriented Stock Selection Strategy," Presented at the Eastern Finance Association annual meeting, April 1986, Baltimore, Maryland. (with J. Haltiner)

Textbooks

Cases in Portfolio Management, R. D. Irwin Publishers, 1988. (with R. Vandell)
Teaching Notes to Accompany Cases in Portfolio Management, R. D. Irwin Publishers, 1988. (with R. Vandell)

Dr. Haltiner has been a consultant with the firm since 1976. Dr. Haltiner is a Professor at the College of William and Mary Graduate Business School where he has taught since 1976, and was an Assistant Professor at the University if Virginia’s Darden Graduate Business School from 1974-1976. From 1987-1993 he has served as a member of the Investment Advisory Committee of the Virginia Retirement System. Dr. Haltiner received a BA in Mathematics in 1969 from the University of Virginia, where he was an Echols Scholar. He also received an MBA in 1971 and a DBA in 1975 from the University of Virginia.

Articles

"Attrition Revisited," Public Utilities Fortnightly, vol 163 #3, Feb. 2, 1989. (with E. L. Flippen)
"Portfolio Capital Gains Disbursement Strategies," The Financial Review, May, l982. (with W. Bauman)
"Inflation Gains and Losses on Monetary Items: An Empirical Test," Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, Winter, l980. (with R. Bloom, W. Hawthorne, and P. Elgers)
"Beta Regression Tendencies: Statistical and Real Causes," Journal of Finance, March, l979. (with P. Elgers, W. Hawthorne)
"The Capital Asset Pricing Model and Utility Equity Returns," Public Utilities Fortnightly, July, l978. (with R. Vandell and J. Malernee)
"The Association of Financial Leverage Change and Asset Growth with Returns to Common Equity," Proceedings Issue of the American Accounting Association, August, l977, Portland, Oregon. (with R. Bloom, P. Elgers, and W. Hawthorne)

Abstracts

Abstract in the FMA International's Contemporary Financial Digest, Fall 2001, on "The Rationality of Asset Allocation Recommendations" by Edwin Elton & Martin Gruber, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Vol. 35, No. 1, March, 2000.
"Timing The Market With Value Oriented Vs. Growth Oriented Stock Selection Strategies," presented at the Decision Sciences Institute meeting, Honolulu, November 1986.
"A Definitional Bias in the Pricing of Electric and Gas Utility Equities: A Theoretic and Empirical Study of Disequilibrium in the Capital Markets," presented at the American Institute of Decision Sciences meeting, Las Vegas, November, l980. (with S. Levkoff and F. Robeson)
"Non Pareto Optimality in the Capital Markets: The Case of Electric and Gas Utility Equity Securities," presented at the Financial Management Association annual meeting in New Orleans, October, l980. (with S. Levkoff and F. Robeson)
"Re-Assessing Beta Estimation Procedures: Alternative Bayesian Regimes, Random Coefficients, and Accounting Fundamentals," presented at Eastern Finance Association annual meeting, Savannah, Georgia, April, l980. (with S. Levkoff and P. Elgers)
"Capital Budgeting Techniques and Uncertain Inflation," presented at the Southern Finance and Economic Association Meetings, November, l978, Washington, D. C. (with R. Flood)
"Inflationary Expectations, Financial Leverage and Shareholder Wealth," presented at the Eastern Finance Association Meetings, April, l978, Atlanta, Georgia. (with R. Bloom, P. Elgers, and W. Hawthorne)
"The Influence of Financial Leverage Changes on Security Market Returns," presented at the Eastern Finance Association Meetings, April, l977, Boston, Massachusetts. (with R. Bloom, P. Elgers, and W. Hawthorne)
"Systematic Risk is Not Systematic," presented at the Western Finance Association Meetings, June, l976, San Francisco, California. (with R. Vandell)
"Portfolio Total Return and the Income Disbursement Problem," presented at the Eastern Finance Association Meetings, April, l976, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. (with W. Bauman)

Textbooks

"Short and Long Term Debt," Chapter B6 in Controller's Business Advisor, Warren, Gorham & Lamont, New York, 1994, pp. 1-29. [Revision in 1997] (with J. Strong)
"Investments: Analysis and Management," Instructor’s manual, by D. Hayes and W. Bauman, MacMillan and Co., l976.

Mrs. Chandler is an investment professional with almost 30 years of experience. She has worked with Vantage since 1988 and before becoming President worked in portfolio management, account management, and client service as a Principal of Delta Financial, Inc. From 1980-1983, Mrs. Chandler was a securities analyst, portfolio manager, and Assistant Investment Officer for Virginia National Bank. Mrs. Chandler graduated cum laude from Mary Baldwin College with a BA in economics in 1977 and received her MBA from the University of Virginia in 1980. She earned her Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1984.

Mrs. Cole has served as Secretary and Treasurer for Vantage Consulting Group since 1988. She served in a similar capacity at Delta Financial, Inc. from 1983 until 1999. From 1979-1983, Mrs. Cole was a research analyst, assistant portfolio manager, and Assistant Investment Officer for Virginia National Bank. Mrs. Cole graduated from the College of William & Mary with an MBA in 1987, and in 2008 earned Investment Adviser Certified Compliance Professional designation through the National Regulatory Services Program co-sponsored with the Investment Adviser Association.

Dr. Elder has 20 years experience making practical the latest Data Mining research in order to solve challenging commercial applications. Dr. Elder has led research on adaptive data-driven techniques at an engineering consulting firm, an investment firm, at Rice University, and at the University of Virginia. Dr. Elder has written numerous book chapters and articles on pattern discovery techniques, and is a frequently invited conference speaker. Dr. Elder has led projects successfully applying Data Mining to a wide variety of financial, commercial, and military applications including cross-selling, customer segmentation, direct marketing, credit scoring, sales forecasting, stock selection, drug efficacy, adaptive flight control, and fraud detection. Dr. Elder has been honored, since Fall 2001, to serve on a Panel formed by Congress to guide critical defense technology for the National Security Agency.

Articles

"The Interface Conference - A Resource for KDD," SIGKDD Explorations, Vol. 1, Issue 1, Assoc. for Computing Machinery, June 1999.
"Machine Learning, Neural and Statistical Classification," (eds. Michie, Spiegelhalter & Taylor; Ellis Horwood, 1994), review for J. American Statistical Assoc. 91, no. 433: 436-437. March 1996.
"Prosection Views" by Furnas and Buja, invited comment for Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics 3, no. 4: 355-362. 1994.
"A New Method for Predicting Shoreline Positions from Historical Data," Journal of Coastal Research 9, no. 1: 147-171, Winter 1993. (with M. S. Fenster and R. Dolan)

Textbooks

"Induction and Polynomial Networks," Chapter 6 of Network Models for Control and Processing, M. Fraser, Ed., Intellect, Bristol, UK, August 2000. (with D. Brown)
"A Statistical Perspective on Knowledge Discovery in Databases," Chapter 4 in Advances in Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, eds. U. M. Fayyad, G. Piatetsky-Shapiro, P. Smyth, and R. Uthurusamy, AAAI/MIT Press, 1996. (with D. Pregibon)
"Heuristic Search for Model Structure: the Benefits of Restraining Greed," Chapter 13 in Learning from Data: Artificial Intelligence and Statistics V, Lecture Notes in Statistics, eds. D. Fisher and H.-J. Lenz, Springer-Verlag: New York. 1996.

Dr. Stevens has been a consultant with Vantage Consulting since 1985. He is a Professor of Finance at the University of Richmond - E.C. Robins School of Business. He was awarded a BS in Economics, magna cum laude from Southwest Missouri State University in 1972. He also received an MS and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois in 1977 and 1980 respectively.

Articles

"Industry and Liquidity Effects in Corporate Investment and Cash Relationships," Journal of Applied Business Research, vol.8, no.1, Winter, 2002. (with W. Charlton and C. Lancaster)
"Integration of LIBOR and Treasury Bill Yields over Different Monetary Regimes," Global Finance Journal, vol. 11, 2000. (with J. Clinebell and D. Kahl)
"Searching for Excellence Among College Undergraduates," Applications of Financial Principles to Student Transcripts," Financial Practice and Education, vol.10, no.2, 2000. (with W. Charlton)
"Closed-end International and Country Funds as Defensive Assets for Small Investors Relative to a Passive S&P 500 Index, Journal of Research in Finance, vol.2, no.1, 1999. (with J. Clinebell and D. Kahl)
"Corporate Liquidity, Accrual Income, and Cash Flows: An Examination of Industry Effects," Journal of Applied Business Research, vol. 15, no. 3, 1999. (with C. Lancaster)
"Serial Properties and Forecasts of LIBOR," Global Business and Finance Review, vol. 4, no. 2, 1999. (with J. Clinebell and D. Kahl)
"Inflation Indexed Treasury Bonds: Cash Flows, Taxes and Simulated Returns," Journal of Financial Planning, vol.12, no. 4, 1999. (with D. Kahl)
"Corporate Liquidity and the Significance of Earnings versus Cash Flows," Journal of Applied Business Research, vol.14, no. 4, 1998. (with C. Lancaster)
"Time Series Estimation of the Bond Default Risk Premiums" Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, vol.36, no. 4, 1996. (with J. Clinebell and D. Kahl)
"Corporate Returns and Cash Conversion Cycles," Journal of Economics and Finance, vol. 20, no. 1, 1996. (with M. Jose and C. Lancaster)
"Stability of Excellence: Revealed Patterns in Tobin's q-Ratios," Journal of Applied Business Research, vol. 12, no. 1, 1996. (with M. Jose and C. Lancaster)
"Debt Term Structure: Beyond Yield to Maturity Assumptions" Financial Practice and Education, vol. 5, no. 2, 1995. (with C. Lancaster)
"Treasury Bill Rates as Proxies for Expected Inflation," Quarterly Journal of Business and Economics, vol. 34, no. 1, 1995. (with C. Jones and D. Kahl)
"Protocol, Etiquette, and Responsibilities of Reviewers in Finance," Financial Practice and Education, vol. 4, no. 2, 1994. (with R. Bower, John Finnerty, Joseph Finnerty and W. McDaniel)
"Risks and Rewards from High-Yield Stock Investments," Journal of Financial Planning, vol. 7, no. 3, 1994. (with C. Lancaster)
"Time Series Properties of the Equity Risk Premium, Journal of Financial Research, vol. 17, no. 1, 1994. (with J. Clinebell and D. Kahl)
"Investment Performance of High Income Stocks Over Up and Down Markets," Journal of Economics and Finance, vol. 17, no. 2, 1993. (with J. Clinebell and J. Squires)
"Investment Performance Over Bull and Bear Markets: Fabozzi and Francis Revisited," Quarterly Journal of Business and Economics, vol. 32, no. 4, 1993. (with J. Clinebell and J. Squires)
"Market Segmentation and the Residual Demand for Tax-Exempt Bonds: Empirical Evidence from the Elimination of Interest Deductions," Journal of Business Finance, and Accounting, vol. 19, no. 5, 1992. (with M. McCue)
"The Effects of Dividend Payout, Stability, and Smoothing on Firm Value," Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, vol. 7, no. 2, 1992. (with M. Jose)
"Spreads Between Total Rates of Return on Stocks and Bonds: Is there Information for Asset Allocation?" Akron Business and Economic Review, vol. 22, no. 2, 1991. (with J. Clinebell and D. Kahl)
"Tobin's q and the Structure-Performance Relationship: Comment," American Economic Review, vol. 89, no. 3, 1990.
"Investment Performance of an Extreme Value Market Timing Approach," Journal of Financial Planning, vol. 3, no. 1, 1990. (with M. Finn)
"Capital Market Valuation of Dividend Policy," Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, vol. 16, no. 5, 1989. (with M. Jose)
"Evidence of Superior Performance from Timing," Journal of Portfolio Management, vol. 15, no. 3, 1989. (with R. Vandell)
"Product Market Structure, Capital Intensity, and Systematic Risk: Empirical Results from the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Financial Research, vol. 10, no. 2, 1987. (with M. Jose)
"Contributions of Diversification, Promotion, and R&D to the Value of the Multiproduct Firm: A Tobin's q Approach," Financial Management, vol. 15, no. 4, 1986. (with M. Jose and L. Nichols)
"Tobin's q, Risk, and Market Power," Journal of Business Research, vol. 14, no. 3, 1986.
"Bank Market Concentration and Costs of Production: Is there X-Inefficiency in Banking?" Business Economics, vol. 18, no.3, 1983.
"Analyst Skill and the Information Content of Alpha Forecasts," Journal of the Midwest Finance Association, vol. 11, 1982. (with R. Vandell)
"Personal Taxes and Equity Security Pricing," Financial Management, vol. 11, no. 1, 1982. (with R. Vandell)

Dr. Strong has been a Vantage consultant since 1994. He is an Associate Professor of Finance and Economics, 1985-present, at The College of William and Mary School of Business Administration: Director of Executive MBA Program. He received his BA in Economics and Urban Planning at Washington and Lee University in 1978, a Master of Public Policy in 1981 with concentrations in Transportation and Economic Regulation, and was awarded a PhD in 1986 by Harvard University in Business Economics (Finance).

Articles

"Economic Impacts of Transportation Investments: The Case of Federal Express," Transportation Journal, Vol. 37 No. 2, Winter 1997. (with C. Oster and B. Rubin)
"Short and Long Term Debt," in Controller's Business Advisor, S. Collins, editor. Boston: Warren, Gorham and Lamont, 1994, Section B6. (with J. Haltiner)
"Investment," entry in Volume Four of Italian Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, (Encyclopedia delle Scienze Sociale), Rome: University of Rome, forthcoming 1994. (with J. Meyer)
"Credit Market Debt," entry in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Money and Finance, J. Eatwell, M. Milgate and P. Newman, editors. London: Stockton Press, 1992.
"Measuring Financial Risk in the Airline Industry," in Winds of Change: Domestic Air Transport Since Deregulation. Transportation Research Board Special Report 230. Washington: National Research Council, 1991.
"Using Oil Share Portfolios to Hedge Oil Price Risk," Quarterly Review of Economics and Business, Vol. 31 No. 1, Spring 1991, pp. 48-63.

Mr. Finn is an investment professional with over 12 years experience at Vantage Consulting Group, where he has worked since graduating from the University of Virginia in 1995 with a BA in economics. Mr. Finn has served as Vice President and as a portfolio manager and trader for Vantage Consulting Group. In addition, Mr. Finn was a portfolio manager for the Lindner family of mutual funds from 1999-2001, serving as co-manager for the Small Cap and Asset Allocation funds. Mr. Finn currently serves on the Investor Advisory Committee of WI Harper Fund VI, a Venture Capital Fund focused in greater China, and is on the board of directors of eReceivables, a private financial services firm in Florida. Mr. Finn is the managing member of Emerald Isle Fund, LLC and a managing member of New Ventures I, LLC, both funds are venture capital/private equity investments focused on Healthcare, Biotech and Pharma. Mr. Finn earned his Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1999.

Mr. Wolfe is an investment professional with over 25 years of experience. Mr. Wolfe has held a variety of positions at Vantage including trader, operations manager, and systems developer specializing in quantitative modeling, and currently is in charge of Operations. From 1981 to 1987, Mr. Wolfe was employed by Tidewater Consultants Inc, a management and systems consulting firm Mr. Wolfe received his BA from Virginia Wesleyan College in 1983 and an MBA from the College of William and Mary in 1989.

Mr. Elder has worked at the Vantage Consulting Group from 2001. Prior to Vantage, he worked at Lindner Asset Management: from 1999 – 2001 as Vice President of Operations: Signature Financial Group: 1995 – 1999 as Vice President, Treasury Operations; at Phoenix Home Live Insurance Company: 1983 – 1994 as Treasurer, Phoenix Family of Mutual Funds and at Price Waterhouse: 1973 -1983 as Audit Manager. He graduated from Coe College with a BA in 1971 as was awarded an MBA from Washington University in 1973.

Penny grew up in the investment advisor industry.  For the better part of twenty years she served in various client service, compliance and portfolio operations roles.  As her career evolved, she served in the roles of Vice President, Chief Compliance Officer and the Director of Operations at two private investment advisory firms each with assets under management in excess of a billion dollars.   She has also served as a private consultant to a law firm in Washington, DC that specializes in Securities Regulation and Administrative Law.  Penny joined Vantage in March of 2005.

Mr. Culver is a computer professional with 8 years of experience specializing in software engineering & development as well as database management. He has been with the Vantage Consulting Group since graduating from Clemson University in 2004 with a BS in Computer Science and a minor in Business Management. Prior to Vantage, Mr. Culver has worked for RBC Dain Rauscher, the National Security Agency and as a freelance software developer.

Mr. Sanjeev Sagar Mudumba is an investment professional with Vantage Consulting Group. Mr. Mudumba joined Vantage in June, 2005 after completing his MBA at the College of William & Mary Graduate School of Business. While doing his MBA, Mr. Mudumba interned with Sorrentino Asset Management as a quantitative research analyst. He has also worked as an Information Technology consultant for over four years with various technology firms in Asia, Australia and Europe. Mr. Mudumba has a graduate degree in Engineering & Technology from The National Institute of Technology in Warangal India in addition to his MBA.