DoubleLine Relationship Manager Stephen Dopp sits down with Nevin Adams, chief advisor strategist at Endeavor Retirement and one of the most trusted independent voices in the retirement industry. Mr. Adams walks through a career that splits into two halves: first working on plans and dealing with participants, then spending the rest of it explaining the laws and regulations behind them so others can do a better job. His stops include the Employee Benefit Research Institute, trade publications PLANSPONSOR and PLANADVISER, and the American Retirement Association. Today, he co-hosts the Nevin and Fred podcast and writes the Tuesday Talking Points Substack. He shares how he stays on top of it all, from litigation trackers to government distribution lists, and admits he was “geeking out” over a fresh Labor Department and Treasury update the previous day.

Mr. Adams also shares his views on the industry. Twenty years after the Pension Protection Act, he credits auto enrollment and target-date defaults with transforming participation. But as a retiree himself, he’s wary of defaulting people into products they don’t understand. He says the industry keeps hunting for one-size-fits-all retirement income answers, noting, “If you average the savings of a 20-year-old and the average of savings of a 65-year-old, you’re going to get mush.” He notes that retirement policy is one of the few areas where lawmakers still cross party lines, and on Social Security, he doesn’t mince words: “Somebody needs to rethink the math.”

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Speaker Bio:

The former Chief Content Officer and Head of Retirement Research for the American Retirement Association, and one of the retirement industry’s most prolific writers, these days Nevin is “retired”, which means he writes less, but continues to keep his eye on developments in, and threats to, the nation’s private retirement system. He’s also the “Nevin” in the Nevin & Fred podcast (along with renowned ERISA attorney Fred Reish), offering irreverent, but relevant perspectives on the critical issues confronting plan sponsors, advisors, and retirement industry professionals.

He’s also been the Employee Benefits Research Institute’s Director of Education and External Relations, Co-Director of EBRI’s Center for Research on Retirement Income and Director of the American Savings Education Council, and prior to that spent a dozen years as Global Editor-in-Chief of PLANSPONSOR/PLANADVISER – and was the creator, writer and publisher of PLANSPONSOR.com’s NewsDash – all that after spending about 20 years working in senior retirement plan industry roles.

He has been honored three times by the National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators (NAGDCA) with their Media Recognition Award (in 2002, 2004 and 2013), and has regularly been noted as one of the Most Influential People in Defined Contribution by the 401kWire, most recently ranked #7 of the top 100. In 2023 his contributions to the nation’s private retirement system were acknowledged with ASPPA’s Harry T. Eidson Founder’s Award, and in 2025 he received the Plan Sponsor Council of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Finance from DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois and after a number of years working with retirement plans, also received his JD from DePaul University.

Stephen Dopp welcomes back recurring guest Tim Paulson for a reaction to last week’s Federal Reserve pause, recorded on midterm Election Day. Mr. Paulson thinks the federal funds rate gets far too much attention. A December hike has been quietly telegraphed but won’t be the start of a major cycle, as Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh only wants to move from slightly accommodative to slightly restrictive. He reads the two dissents at the last FOMC meeting as a sign of a Fed working the way it used to work, now that forward guidance is fading and markets have to price risk like grown-ups again. The inflation worry, in his view, is sticky wage gains in core gauges, a $2 trillion deficit keeping money in everyone’s hands and an AI buildout that is crowding out demand for chips and energy.

On AI, Mr. Paulson says the dot-com era comparison breaks down because today’s companies have real earnings and real demand. It still feels like early innings, and a megacap tech stock’s 12% one-day drop looks more like a twitchy market than a savage earnings report. He also argues 5% long-term yields are historically normal, and that what isn’t normal is a deficit so large that interest costs now exceed military spending. On the midterms, he doesn’t hedge: “If there’s anything that’s more overhyped than the fed funds rate, it’s election outcomes.” Whichever party wins, the fiscal burden won’t change, because both are fighting over who can put a foot on the spending accelerator.

Stephen Dopp welcomes Joe Smolen, President of Workplace Solutions at Empower, to The Glide Path. Mr. Smolen has spent 27 years at the same company, starting as a sales rep driving across Iowa when Great-West Financial was the 38th largest of more than 500 recordkeepers. (Great-West rebranded its retirement division as Empower after corporate consolidation in 2014.) Empower is now the second largest recordkeeper, serving about 22 million Americans, and fewer than 80 recordkeepers remain. Mr. Smolen explains how acquisitions got the firm there and why diversifying beyond recordkeeping was essential in a fee-compressed business. On competition, he sees private equity showing up more in advisor and TPA consolidation than in recordkeeping and says fintechs and payroll providers bring great technology but little else: “They have absolutely no distribution. And distribution is still king.” Customer service, not funds or fees, is the No. 1 reason plans switch providers. Mr. Dopp then runs a lightning round on industry trends. Mr. Smolen calls retirement income real but slow to catch on and sees personalized managed accounts as the future. He expects private assets to reach defined contribution plans faster than retirement income has, though daily valuation and liquidity hurdles remain. He believes pooled employer plans are how the industry will absorb a surge of new plans, and that CITs have arrived at every plan size. Mr. Smolen closes with leadership lessons from his father and mentors, and a dream dinner with Jesus, Eric Church and Kansas City barbecue.

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Speaker bio:

Joe Smolen is President of Workplace Solutions at Empower, where he leads the firm’s workplace business, including 401(k), 403(b), 457, nonqualified, defined benefit, and stock plan services, as well as consumer-directed healthcare plans. He also oversees the teams that partner with Empower’s institutional recordkeeping clients and is responsible for the workplace product organization, including Empower Advisory Group, a registered investment adviser.

In this role, Joe has accountability for enterprise strategy and product development, new business acquisition, and overall client satisfaction, retention, and financial performance across all workplace business segments.

Joe joined the organization in 1999 and brings more than 25 years of industry experience. Throughout his tenure, he has held a range of sales and leadership roles, contributing to the company’s growth and evolution into a leading retirement and workplace solutions provider.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in management from Kansas State University. Joe currently serves as Vice Chair of the boards of the Children’s Diabetes Foundation and the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes. He also serves on the Limra/LOMA Advisory Board and EAG Board. He has also served on the SPARK Advisory Board and as Chairman of the SPARK Governing Board.