New Academic Editor
Last month, we unveiled a new design for the Journal of Financial Planning, intended to better showcase the Journal’s role as a trusted, authoritative source of financial planning information. In the same issue, we launched our Practice Management Solutions section in response to readers who requested one-stop access to the full breadth of information they need to become better planners. We also hinted at more exciting changes to come. True to our word, this month we are proud to introduce the Journal’s new academic editor, John E. Grable, Ph.D., CFP®.
Professor Grable teaches and conducts research in the CFP Board-registered undergraduate and graduate programs at the University of Georgia, where he holds an Athletic Association Endowed Professorship. Prior to entering the academic profession, he worked as a pension/benefits administrator and later as a Registered Investment Adviser in an asset management firm.
John served as founding editor for the Journal of Personal Finance and co-editor of the Journal of Financial Therapy. His research interests include financial risk-tolerance assessment, psychophysiological economics, and financial planning help-seeking behavior. He has been the recipient of several research and publication awards and grants. He has authored numerous refereed papers that promoted the link between research and financial planning practice, has co-written two financial planning textbooks, and co-edited a financial planning and counseling book of scales. He also writes a quarterly column for a leading financial services journal.
John Grable follows in the fine tradition of the Journal’s first academic editor, Tom Warschauer, whose long association with our publication dates back to its ICFP roots. (Our annual Montgomery-Warschauer Award in part was named for Tom.) Bringing John aboard signifies something of a return to an approach that helped make the Journal of Financial Planning America’s most influential journal in terms of how financial planning is practiced.
The addition of John as academic editor, in tandem with the addition of Michael Kitces as practitioner editor in 2012, enables the Journal to improve simultaneously on two fronts. John’s primary responsibilities will be assisting with editorial reviews of incoming manuscripts, as well as identifying valuable topics and sources for the Journal’s technical contributions. He will be the top-line editor for those papers, ensuring a superior level of quality control over our peer-reviewed content. We believe John also will be an invaluable link to the growing financial planning academic community, in which his is a respected voice.
His practitioner editor counterpart, Michael Kitces, will continue to provide input to help us make sure the Journal’s content is relevant and useful for today’s financial planning practitioners. Michael also will continue to be a valuable writer and interviewer, ensuring a steady flow of information that is fresh, timely, and that reflects his own high level of understanding and expertise.
What other improvements does the Journal have in store for our readers? Perhaps the addition of a respected columnist or two? You’ll just have to watch this space in coming issues to find out.
Lance Ritchlin
Editor
