Rob brings 25 years of portfolio management, manager selection, institutional asset consulting, and product design experience to Benchmark Plus.  Previously, he served as the Chief Investment Officer for the $7.4 billion defined benefit Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS) where he led a multi-billion diversification effort into hedge fund and private equity investments.  Before Arizona Public Safety, Rob served for over nine years as Chairman of the Investment Management Executive Committee and Chief Investment Officer for Genworth Financial Asset Management, Inc. (a unit of Genworth Financial, Inc.) where he directed $6.1 billion of domestic and international equity, alternative, and derivative assets.  Rob has an in-depth background covering institutional and high-net-worth product design and positioning, hedge funds, investment policy, strategic and tactical asset allocation, manager selection and optimal combination, currency risk management, derivatives overlay, and asset/liability modeling.  Rob has a PhD in Finance from Northwestern University and MA degrees in Economics from both Northwestern University and the University of Maryland at College Park.  He is a Chartered Financial Analyst and a member of the CFA Institute, CFA Society of Los Angeles, CFA Society of Colorado, and the Financial Management Association.  Rob has completed Six Sigma Quality Control training with General Electric and holds GE’s Green Belt process management designation.  He also maintains his NASAA Series 65 license.

Mr. Chelo has over 17 years of experience in the investment industry, ranging from the back office to portfolio management.  Prior to joining Benchmark Plus Partners, Mr. Chelo was a Vice President and Portfolio Manager at Rampart Investment Management.  He was responsible for the management of Rampart’s Buy-Write Index, Protected Equity, Enhanced Index ,and Quantitative Equity Programs.  He was actively involved in modeling and designing new equity and option strategies.  Neil was also an active trader in the equity and options market.   

Prior to joining Rampart, Neil was a Supervisor in the Securities Management Group of the Boston Company.  From 1993 to 1996 he was responsible for the accounting and client service for more than 15 large pension funds.

Neil received a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance, 1993 and a Masters of Science degree in Finance, 2000 from Bentley College.  He was awarded his CFA Charter in 1999.  Neil has also been awarded the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) and Financial Risk Manager (FRM) designations.  He also maintains his Series 3.

Steve has more than 14 years of experience researching and analyzing hedge funds and hedge fund strategies. Prior to joining Benchmark, Steve was a founding principal at Trail Ridge Capital, LLC. At Trail Ridge Steve was in charge of portfolio design and construction as well as manager research and selection. Prior to founding Trail Ridge, Steve served as the Director of Manager Research and Portfolio Manager for Long/Short Partners (now Silver Creek), a $600 million low volatility fund of funds. Prior to that, Steve was the Senior Manager Research Associate for Tremont Partners where he was responsible for the analysis and due diligence of hedge funds for Tremont's consulting clients, with a particular focus on arbitrage, quantitative, equity market neutral and long/short equity hedge fund strategies. Steve also spent four years as Manager of Economic and Performance Analysis with Weyerhaeuser's Pension Fund Investment Group and was responsible for the statistical analysis and performance evaluation of investment managers and investment strategies.  He has several years experience teaching Economics at the University of Washington. He has a B.A. in Chemistry from Earlham College, an MPH in Epidemiology from the University of Alabama-Birmingham and an M.A. in Economics from the University of Washington.

In his 13 years in the investment industry Chris has experience with securities research, portfolio management, securities finance, and arbitrage trading.  Chris joined Benchmark from Paloma Securities, where he was the manager of a regional trading desk and a senior trader working on the Canadian and European trade book analyzing and managing global arbitrage opportunities.  He was also the head of the Hedge Fund security finance team that performed due diligence of hedge funds to assist in enhanced finance/margin treatment and short coverage cost.  Prior to that Chris was a portfolio manager for the investment division of Key Asset Management.  He managed institutional and private client discretionary accounts and was responsible for sales, asset research/valuation, and portfolio allocation.  Chris co-founded the Northwest Hedge Fund Society in 2004.  He earned his Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 1998 and holds a BBA from the University of Portland.

Matthew has over 12 years of experience as a trader and portfolio manager in the fixed income and derivatives markets. Matthew began his career in the trading pits of the Chicago Board of Trade as an independent proprietary options trader. After a brief stint in the agricultural options markets, Matthew was assigned to initiate his firm’s entrance into the Treasury Options markets where he led a team in building the market making and risk management operation in the interest rate quadrant. He later joined a firm arbitraging S&P 500 Options between the CBOE and CME contracts. Prior to joining Benchmark, Matthew served as Deputy Director at the State of Tennessee’s Consolidated Retired System (TCRS) where he oversaw $14 billion in fixed income and derivative assets. During his six years with TCRS he conducted trading, research, and allocation across fixed income sectors and currencies. As part of his efforts to enhance the fixed income product group, Matthew initiated and helped to build an interest rate derivative overlay program used to adjust interest rate and spread duration profiles and to hedge downside risks. Matthew holds an MBA from Vanderbilt University and a BA in Economics from Oregon State University. He earned his Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 2006.

Mr. Canorro graduated from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce in 2004, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Commerce with a concentration in finance.  Prior to joining Benchmark Plus in March 2008, John worked in the San Francisco office of KPMG LLP where he was an associate in their Transaction Services practice. While at KPMG, John focused on commercial due diligence reports for strategic and financial acquirers, concentrating on the primary revenue and cost assumptions underlying a target company’s financial projections in merger and acquisition transactions ranging from $25 million to over $20 billion in size.  Prior to joining KPMG in 2006, John was a financial analyst with Cary Street Partners, a boutique investment banking firm based in Richmond, Virginia.  During his time at Cary Street, John performed comprehensive research and financial analysis involving capital raising and strategic initiatives for middle market companies while working closely with senior executives, investors and lenders in a variety of investment banking transactions ranging from $10 million to $475 million in size.  John is currently a Level III Candidate in the Chartered Financial Analyst Program.