When Hughes became the ICFP's executive director, he suddenly was point man in some very difficult negotiations. He was personally involved in both rounds of unsuccessful merger talks with the International Association for Financial Planning (IAFP). At times, the two rounds of on and off again merger talks-which began around 1984 and ended in 1988 as Hughes was leaving his executive posts at the ICF-were bitter.

"The time just was not right. The culture of the two organizations was very distinct," he says. Many IAFP members feared their group would be swallowed by the ICFP. They were also nonplussed, say parties to the talks, by the insistence that the CFP mark would have to be the most important designation.

"The problem," says Carroll, president of the IAFP in 1987, "was the leadership was ahead of the membership. Many of the non-practitioners just thought that they would be hurt by the merger and they just couldn't go along."

Brent Neiser, a former ICFP executive director and now the director of collaborative programs for the National Endowment for Financial Education, agrees that the time wasn't right in the late 1980s. "We needed time for the CFP designation to take root; to be recognized by the public, media and the members of this profession. We needed time for the CFP designation to breathe," says Neiser

Hughes' organization held that one had to be a CFP to be a member, while the other allowed just about anyone to be members. "Those talks did not end amicably. We didn't shake hands at the end of it and say maybe we'll try again," he says.

That's even though Hughes says he thought highly of Carroll. Nevertheless, Carroll says the aborted talks served a purpose. "They laid out the one or two issues that everyone knew had to be solved for a successful merger to take place," Carroll says.

Indeed, Hughes believes these talks laid the groundwork for the birth of the FPA several years later. Neiser credits Hughes and the CFP Board of Standards with taking steps that helped the merger succeed eventually. "Their work," says Neiser, "helped protect and improve the marks in the mind of the public and the media, and it eventually worked."

Hughes notes that the eventual evolution of the FPA wasn't far from what the ICFP of the 1980s wanted: The CFP designation as the dominant designation in the planning profession. "This is the entity that represents the profession, and we said that it would be a good idea if the professional planner and professional corporate activities were separated in this group," Hughes says.

Getting Started

Before becoming an advisor, Hughes already had several other careers, many of which had nothing to do with planning or investments. A father in more ways than one, Hughes was a priest for three years. He was also a teacher of classical languages. He entered the securities business in the early 1970s, and about a decade later started his planning firm.

Over the years, he served on a local hospital board and was mayor of Brightwaters, N.Y., an idyllic village on the south shore of Long Island, for two terms. Part of the town of Bay Shore in Suffolk County on the eastern end of the island, it is the place where Hughes spent most of his youth. At one point, he thought about running for Congress.

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