Harold Evensky and Lynn Hopewell were named the joint recipients of this year's Skip Viragh Award, which is to be presented at the Financial Advisor Symposium in Chicago on September 25. Both advisors received the award for their contributions to the development of financial planning as a profession. In Hopewell's case, the award was posthumous, as he died on March 28.
   "When we conceived of the award, it was our intent to have one recipient," says Tom Lydon, who chaired the selection committee. "However, this year, we had two nominees who were both practitioners and who both advanced the profession in numerous ways. In light of these circumstances, we decided to make an exception."
   A civil engineer by training, Evensky was recognized for his endless curiosity and his ongoing efforts to help advisors bring the techniques of institutional money management to individual investors. The author of the groundbreaking book, Wealth Management, he has also served as chair of TIAA-CREF Institute Advisory Board, and co-editor of several collections of articles on retirement and investing. This year, he is teaching a course in the Phd. program in financial planning at Texas Tech University.
   Hopewell entered the financial advisory business after earlier careers in the Central Intelligence Agency and the software/communications business. After practicing for several years, Hopewell authored a series of articles in the 1980s that laid the foundation for most modern retirement planning software programs. In the 1990s, he pioneered the development of Monte Carlo simulation techniques that provided financial planning clients with a realistic range of outcomes they might expect to face with their finances in retirement.
   The award was named after Rydex Funds founder Skip Viragh, who died in 2003. Sponsors of the award include Rydex, Russell Indexes, Nasdaq, Standard & Poor's, State Street and Fiserv. As part of the award, several contributions will be made to children as part of the Make A Wish Foundation.