James A. Shambo received his Arizona CPA License in September of 1976 and his Colorado CPA License in January of 1980. He was awarded the Personal Financial Specialist Designation with Distinction in December of 1985. He retired and closed his business, Lifetime Planning Concepts, in January 2016. From 1984 to 1987, Jim served on the Colorado Specialization Oversight Board that created the PFS designation. He served on AICPA Financial Planning committees from 1986 to 1995 including the PFP Division's Executive Committee from 1990 to 1995 where he served as chairman from October 1993 to October 1995. In 2002, Jim's paper "Monte Carlo Simulations - Are your boots in the water?" he challenged the financial planning profession to create improved software with more realistic retirement simulations. In 2008 Jim was awarded the Financial Frontiers Award for Techniques in Financial Planning for his paper "The Hedonic Pleasure Index ™ - An Enhanced Model for Spending Inflation." The award promoted serious research and innovative thinking on wealth management and financial planning topics. In 2015 the AICPA released Jim's book "The CPA's Guide to Practical Retirement Planning" which has become the basis for several seminars on key issues found in the guide. In 1999, Mr. Shambo received the Distinguished Service Award from the AICPA's PFP Division and received special recognition in 2011 for his years of outstanding contributions to the PFS Credential. In 2015 Jim was awarded the "Iconoclast of the Year Award" from Inside Information author and financial planning trailblazer Bob Veres for his years of thinking outside the box on financial planning topics. In 2016 Jim was honored as the second ever recipient of the AICPA PFP Divisions' "Stanley H. Breitbard Lifetime Achievement Award".