Meet Our Team
From left top to right bottom: Robert T. Cooper, Frank E. Cooper, III, Stephen M. Bunch, Charles E. Poe, Michelle E. Halpin
- Registered Investment Adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission
- Certified Financial Analyst, Certified Public Accountant, MBA, CIMA, Series 65 and all compliance registration and fulfillment
- Over 100 years of combined industry experience in Personal Asset Management, Corporate Asset Management, Financial Planning, Personal & Corporate Tax Planning & Accounting, Business Succession Planning and Retirement Planning & Administration
- Combined experience managing personal and corporate assets in excess of $300M
- Presently managing and supporting approximately 400 individual and corporate clients in excess of $130M in assets under management
- Proven track record of outperforming key market standards and protecting client assets in all market environments
- Completely customized client service model delivering a superior client experience for over forty-five years
- Experience working with multiple generations of client families providing long-term strategies and advice for legacy planning
- Member of both the SIPC (Securities Investors Protection Corporation) and FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority)
Frank E. Cooper, III
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Frank grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida and graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Presbyterian College in 1964. After five years of working with his family business, Anderson Surgical Supply Co., he shifted his focus to personal investments in 1969 and began working as an assistant to a general partner of Reynolds & Co., a predecessor of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
In 1989, Frank became certified as a Portfolio Manager with Shearson Lehman Brothers, Inc. and successfully transitioned his practice from a transactional, commission-based structure to a fee-based model to better align his interests with his clients. In the fall of 1999, Frank decided to leverage his experience and client-centric focus and established his own firm under the name Cooper Investment Group via a semi-independent platform with Wheat First Securities.
In 2006, he completed his independent transition to Cooper Capital Management through a completely independent platform supported by Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network. Frank became a student of the financial markets through extensive reading and hands-on practice over the past forty-six years. He has constructed thousands of custom portfolios through a deep understanding of the personal needs and circumstances of each client. He continues to incorporate a proactive asset allocation model and manages investments through a mix of fundamental and technical analysis while observing market environments and behaviors on a daily basis.
Frank’s investment strategy is focused on helping clients stay in harmony with the financial markets by observing market conditions, adapting to momentum trends and executing decisions that support his clients’ best interests.
Charles E. Poe, MBA, CFA
Chief Investment Officer
Charlie has spent the last twenty years in the investment business and he has personally managed over $200M in assets. His professional career began in college as a summer intern with both Smith Barney (1995) and Robinson Humphrey (1996) and continued after graduation in 1996 as an Investment Officer at Southern Family Insurance Company. Charlie also served as the Junior Portfolio Manager at Poe Family Investment Company, a private investment partnership.
From 2000-2002, Charlie attended and graduated from IESE, an international graduate business program in Barcelona, Spain that consistently ranks as one of the top five MBA programs in the world in The Economist rankings. During the summer of 2001, he worked with the Disciplined Growth Investment Team that managed $40 billion in assets at Alliance Capital (now AB Global) in New York City. Charlie received a Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 2001. From 2002-2006, Charlie served as Chief Investment Officer of a conglomerate of three insurance companies under Poe Financial Group. Charlie also served as the Investment Manager of Poe Family Investment Company from 2002-2011. During his tenure with Poe Family Investment Company, he oversaw a variety of asset classes from equities to fixed income to hedge funds, private equity and venture capital. He has experience investing across a wide range of asset classes and this experience brings tremendous value to his current role of Chief Investment Officer at Grand Central Investment Group.
Charlie has volunteered at Academy Prep of Tampa since 2006 by co-teaching a class called Focus on Success, a class that he co-designed on vision, purpose, beliefs and goals. He loves to help people reach their goals and this translates well when working with clients at Grand Central Investment Group. He believes in the power of education and he serves on the board of directors at Academy Prep of Tampa, Junior Achievement of Tampa Bay and Glazer’s Children Museum. He grew up in Tampa and currently lives here with his wife, Corey, their three children, a fish, a cat, a fierce bearded dragon and their new dog, Delwyn.
Stephen M. Bunch, CPA
Chief Financial Officer
Steve is a CPA with sixteen years of experience in public accounting with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte and Touche and, more recently, as a partner at Spence, Marston, Bunch, Morris & Co. In his role as Chief Financial Officer, Steve is responsible for the day to day financial operations of Grand Central Investment Group, as well as strategic planning, due diligence on business opportunities and negotiations with outside stakeholders.
Additionally, Steve is responsible for providing tax consultation services, personal financial planning, business succession and wealth succession services for our individual and corporate clients. Steve has assisted clients with tax compliance, tax planning, financial planning, financial accounting/assurance and management consulting services to a wide variety of individuals, family-owned businesses and middle-market companies. His personal philosophy is that client service is a matter of asking the right questions, listening carefully and providing simple yet comprehensive solutions that are easy to understand, easy to execute and serve the client’s best interests.
Steve has built his professional reputation on remaining responsive to each client’s needs on a timely basis and fully understanding our clients’ business, financial and tax issues. Steve graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting (1998) and a Master of Accounting, with a focus on Taxation (1999).
Robert T. Cooper
Bob has more than twelve years of experience working in the fast-paced, pioneering technology start-up world in New York City. He has been a critical early hire for several companies and his efforts of identifying new revenue opportunities, streamlining internal operations and sales processes and establishing key strategic partnerships to help scale businesses on a global level contributed significantly to help these companies reach acquisition.
He brings a consultative, client-centric methodology with extensive experience forging new relationships and partnerships by identifying critical business objectives and aligning solutions that maximize revenue and minimize risk for his clients. His two most recent roles with Buddy Media and BlueKai resulted in successful acquisitions by Salesforce and Oracle totaling over $1.2B.
Bob is responsible for managing all client relationships at Grand Central Investment Group, in addition to targeting new opportunities for growth by leveraging his expansive network of strategic alliances and seeking new potential partnerships. Additionally, he runs Grand Central Investment Group’s marketing and branding strategy, office management, sales operations, IT systems and coordinates our quarterly client events and networking opportunities. His addition to the Grand Central team has significantly scaled how we support the growing needs of our clients by executing personalized strategies that focus on consistently delivering a superior experience specific to every client’s individual needs and communication objectives.
Bob graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Spanish (2000).
Michelle E. Halpin
Michelle has worked with Frank for more than twenty-seven years and has been an immensely valuable partner throughout that time. As Chief Compliance Officer, Michelle is responsible for ensuring that Grand Central Investment Group adheres to the highest standards of legal and regulatory compliance, as well as supporting all back office systems. She has also developed strong rapport with the entire client base serving as the first point of contact for all inbound requests and has become a critical relationship manager for Grand Central’s clients.