Speaker Bios - South Dakota Trust Association

8th Annual Fall Forum

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Fall Forum 2024 – October 17 & 18

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Speakers

Bret Afdahl

Bret Afdahl was appointed Director of the South Dakota Division of Banking in May of 2011 after serving as Counsel to the Division since October of 2006. Bret is a Past Chair of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), the nation’s leading advocate for the state banking system, and served on the FDIC Advisory Committee of State Regulators from 2019 through 2023. Bret is a graduate of Northern State University with a degree in political science and business and a graduate of the University of South Dakota School of Law.

Jennifer Bunkers

Ms. Bunkers is a partner with the Redstone Law Firm, LLP, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She received her J.D. degree in Law from the University of South Dakota and a B.A. in Business Administration from the University of Sioux Falls. A significant portion of Jennifer’s practice is devoted to representing individuals to craft their estate plans. Clients appreciate Jennifer’s extensive knowledge and her personal approach to tailoring clients’ estate plans to fit their wishes in a practical and tax-efficient manner.

Jennifer is also well-respected for her expertise in the area of dynasty trusts, representing both fiduciaries and beneficiaries on all aspects of trust administration. Since her appointment by Governor Dennis Daugaard in 2011, Jennifer has served on the Governor’s Task Force on Trust Administration Review and Reform and currently chairs the committee. Clients find that her extensive experience with trust administration, reformation, decanting and modification is a tremendous benefit to those who have availed themselves of the flexible and progressive trust laws of South Dakota.

In an effort to actively incorporate her passion for philanthropy into her law practice, Jennifer became a Charted Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP). Employing this additional area of expertise allows Jennifer to bring meaningful, tangible value to her clients and community.

Jennifer is married to her husband Jon, a fourth-generation farmer, and together they are raising two awesome teenagers. In her spare time Jen volunteers for numerous church and community activities, currently serving as the Chair of Volunteers of America – Dakotas Foundation, Inc., Vice Chair of the Avera McKennan Hospital and a member of the board of directors for the South Dakota Ag Foundation.

Peter Cotorceanu

Peter advises financial institutions and individuals around the globe on the implementation of FATCA and CRS. Peter also provides cross-border U.S. tax advice for high-net-worth individuals with U.S. connections. Since 2014, Peter has been the CEO and Founder of GATCA & Trusts Compliance Associates LLC (G&TCA) and creator of the website www.gatcaandtrusts.com and co-creator of AEOIclassification.com

From August 2014 to June 2020, Peter was Of Counsel to Anaford Attorneys at Law in Zurich. Before returning to private practice with Anaford in 2014, Peter worked for UBS in Zurich for seven years, first as as Head of Wealth Structuring for Ultra-High-Net-Worth clients and Head of Product Management for Trusts and Foundations. In the latter role, Peter was responsible for implementing FATCA for UBS’s trust companies in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Jersey, and Singapore. Prior to working for UBS, Peter was as an attorney in Baker & McKenzie’s Zurich office. Peter was also a law professor, both full-time and part-time, for several years in the United States and practiced law for almost 20 years in the United States.

Peter is licenced to practice law in the United States (Maryland and Virginia) and before the U.S. Tax Court. Peter is also licensed to practice law as a barrister and solicitor in New Zealand. All of Peter’s law licences are active.

Peter has an LL.M. in Tax from New York University Law School, a J.D. (With Distinction) from Duke University Law School, and an LL.B. (Honours) from Victoria University of Wellington. Peter has published numerous articles on FATCA and CRS and is a frequent speaker on those topics at conferences around the globe. For a list of Peter’s publications and conferences, please visit

https://www.gatcaandtrusts.com/publications/ and https://www.gatcaandtrusts.com/about/#conferences

Peter is reachable at [email protected].

Susan Gary

SUSAN N. GARY, Professor Emerita and formerly Orlando J. and Marian H. Hollis Professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, received her B.A. from Yale University and her J.D. from Columbia University. Before entering academia, she practiced with Mayer, Brown & Platt in Chicago, and with DeBandt, van Hecke & Lagae in Brussels. Professor Gary has taught trusts and estates, estate planning, estate and gift tax, nonprofit organizations, and an undergraduate course on law and families. She continues to teach trusts and estates. She has written and spoken about purpose trusts (stewardship trusts) as a new form of business ownership, the regulation of charities, fiduciary duties including the prudent investor standard, the definition of family for inheritance purposes, donor intent in connection with restricted charitable gifts, and the use of mediation to manage conflict in the estate planning context. She served as a trustee on the University’s Board of Trustees.

Professor Gary is an Academic Fellow and former Regent of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and served on the Council of the Real Property, Trust and Estate Section of the American Bar Association. She served as the Reporter for three projects of the Uniform Law Commission: the Uniform Electronic Wills Act, the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, and the Model Protection of Charitable Assets Act. She was a member of the steering committee of the Intentional Endowments Network and continues to serve on its Fiduciary Investment Committee. She has served on the Advisory Board of the NYU National Center on Philanthropy and the Law and has held leadership positions in three sections (trusts and estates, elder law, and nonprofits) of the Association of American Law Schools.

In Oregon, Professor Gary has been a member of the Oregon Law Commission and served as Reporter for its Probate Modernization Work Group. As a member of the Executive Committee of the Nonprofit Organizations Law Section of the Oregon State Bar she led a review of Oregon’s nonprofit corporation statutes that resulted in legislation revising the statutes. She served on the Executive Committee of the Estate Planning Section of the Oregon bar for nine years, including serving as its chair, and served as Editor of the Estate Planning Section’s newsletter for 15 years. Significant recent articles are “The Changing Landscape of Business Succession: How and Why Purpose Trusts Matter,” Ohio State Bus. L. J. (forthcoming 2024), “Best Interests in the Long Term: Fiduciary Duties and ESG Investing,” 90 Univ. of Colorado L. Rev. 731 (2019), and “The Oregon Stewardship Trust: A New Type of Purpose Trust that Enables Steward-Ownership of a Business,” 88 Univ. of Cincinnati L. Rev. 707 (f2019). They are available on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=557612.

Patrick Goetzinger

Pat is a partner with Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson, & Ashmore, LLP, where he leads the firm’s Business and Estate Planning Group and serves on the Executive Committee. He practices in the areas of Business and Estate Planning with a focus on family-run businesses, affluent individuals, business transactions, and real property law.

Pat served on the American Bar Association Board of Governors. He is past President of the South Dakota State Bar Association and the South Dakota Bar Foundation; a Fellow in the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (South Dakota State Chair); and a Fellow in the American College of Real Estate Lawyers. He is listed among the Best Lawyers in America, Great Plains Super Lawyers, Chambers USAs High Net Worth rankings, and America’s Leading Lawyers for Business in Corporate/Commercial Law and Real Estate Law, and Private Wealth Law. Pat received the 2022 Marshall M. McKusick Award, given annually to an outstanding member of the South Dakota Bar for contributions to the legal profession.

Through his service to the South Dakota State Bar Association, and from his appointment to the Governor’s Task Force on Trust Reform and Administration upon its inception in 1997, Pat has been actively involved in drafting and supporting the enactment of trust and business legislation in the South Dakota Legislature. Pats desire to give back to his profession and the state is demonstrated by being the founder of Project Rural Practice, an initiative to restock rural main streets with attorneys and improve access to justice in rural areas. Pat especially enjoys the connection to the Black Hills and the Mount Rushmore National Memorial provided by his lifetime membership in the Mount Rushmore Society.

Pat serves as counsel for several trust companies with offices in South Dakota, and represents a wide array of businesses in all sizes, including beverage distributors, hi-tech manufacturers, Main Street businesses, agricultural operations and family-owned businesses. Pat served as lead counsel on some of the largest transactions in the state, including what was at the time (2015) the largest ranch sale in South Dakota.

Mark P. Hurley

Hurley is the CEO of Digital Privacy & Protection, LLC. He has co-authored nine major white papers on the wealth management industry over the past two decades. He previously founded Undiscovered Managers, a mutual fund company that he sold to JPMorgan, and Fiduciary Network, one of the wealth management industry’s first aggregators. Earlier in his career he was a managing director at Merrill Lynch and a vice president at Goldman Sachs. He also served as a Presidential Appointee at a bureau of the United States Treasury. Hurley is a graduate of West Point and the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Jamie L. Mendelsohn

Jamie L. Mendelsohn is the Executive Vice President of Ashar Group – a family-owned business with a national footprint. Since 2003, they have focused solely on the life settlement and life insurance policy valuation market. Ashar Group partners with financial professionals, fiduciaries, broker-dealers, and institutions serving as an independent advanced planning resource in the secondary market for life insurance. Throughout her tenure at Ashar Group, Jamie has earned the reputation of a determined client advocate. She is the go-to resource for advanced planners and fiduciaries who integrate life insurance policy valuation into their planning process. If the decision is made to sell the policy as a life settlement, she negotiates with licensed buyers on behalf of their clients. Jamie speaks nationally at financial services conferences and estate planning councils providing continuing education for both financial and insurance professionals. Jamie earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Florida, where she was a member of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority. She is a proud member of Women in Insurance and Financial Services. Jamie dedicates much of her time and energy to the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, where she serves on the board and mentors patients and families. Jamie resides in Orlando, FL, and enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with family and friends.

Michael R. Miranda

Bringing 48 years of experience in tax consulting, estate planning, and employee benefits to his work as an independent consultant, Michael is the owner of MIRANDA CPA & Consulting LLC in Sioux Falls, SD. His tax practice focuses on corporate, individual, estate and gift, and tax accounting. He also provides employee benefit planning and consultation services for qualified, non-qualified, and health and welfare benefit plans. As part of his IRS representation practice, Michael has worked with the National Office to obtain private letter rulings for clients, in addition to numerous EPCRS submissions and audits. As a nationally recognized tax speaker, he maintains an active schedule presenting webinars and seminars on tax law, employee benefit planning, and estate planning. Michael spent much of his career as a CPA with a regional CPA firm located in Northwestern Iowa, retiring after 27 years as a senior manager-shareholder with this firm. His career started as a Tax Specialist with a Big 8 accounting firm in their South Bend and Minneapolis offices, providing tax and estate planning for individuals and small to medium-sized businesses. He has earned professional designations including CPA, QKA, NQPC and AEP. Michael maintains professional memberships with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the American Society of Pension and Professional Actuaries (ASPPA), National Association of Enrolled Agents (NAEA), and the National Association of Estate Planning Councils (NAEPC). Michael resides in Sioux Falls, SD with his wife Jeanette. Outside of his professional practice, Michael is a cellist with the Sioux City Symphony Orchestra. When he is not working, his time is spent with various activities, including traveling with his wife and playing golf.

Barry Sackett

Barry Shaw Sackett is a Managing Partner at Goosmann Law Firm. He is a trusted advisor, helping business leaders find solutions and engage in business opportunities by fostering trust and promoting action. Barry’s business and legal experience stems from years as a business owner, chief financial officer, in-house counsel, assistant county attorney, and legal consultant. His current business involvement and past experience provides him perspective into the clients and leaders he interacts with in his work. Barry’s formal and informal education lends him the language and structured thinking to handle pressure and complexity. His practice areas include blockchain, development, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, tax, estate planning, probate, and mediations and is licensed to practice in Iowa, Minnesota, California and South Dakota. Barry is curious and fluid in everything he does. He loves seeing visions become a reality, and this is the reason he became an attorney. He is a founding member of the South Dakota Blockchain Institute and a member of the States Blockchain Association and the Crypto Valley Association. Barry is active locally, nationally and globally in policy and regulatory issues in the blockchain industry.

Jamie Schupp

As the Director of Risk and Compliance Management, Jamie lead’s Pohl Consulting’s practice providing a wide range of regulatory, compliance, and associated legal and compliance operational services to banks, registered investment advisors and broker-dealers.

Going on 25 years, Jamie has advised banks, registered investment advisors, and broker dealers on a myriad of legal, regulatory, and compliance issues with the primary goal of helping his clients “maximize business while minimizing risk” by getting to “yes” where others could not get past “no.” In doing this, Jamie focuses on finding efficiencies through simplifying unnecessarily complex processes and helping organizations transition to more effective and efficient processes as they grow, simultaneously enhancing both business opportunity as well as legal and compliance effectiveness.

Jamie has developed and delivered multiple presentations on legal, regulatory, and compliance risks facing financial institutions and how best to mitigate those risks, educating audiences from small groups to over 400 people. His extensive experience handling litigation and regulatory enforcement matters allow Jamie to provide real-world advice on what clients should do to address and reduce real, material risks facing their organizations.

Jamie earned his Juris Doctorate from University of Illinois College of Law, cum laude, after completing his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics with a minor in Business Institutions from Northwestern University. He holds the FINRA Series 7, 24, and 66 registrations.

In his spare time, Jamie is an avid road cyclist and baseball fan.

David A. Warren

David Warren is Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board of Bridgeford Trust Company, as well as a member of the Trust Administrative Committee. He is also President and CEO of Bridgeford Advisors dba Bridgeford – a sister company operating throughout the country and around the world providing consultative, planning, business development, and marketing support to Bridgeford Trust Company.

David is an attorney with over 20 years of professional experience practicing law and working in the financial services industry serving the trust and wealth management needs of high and ultra-high net worth families across the nation and around the world. Prior to establishing Bridgeford Trust Company, he was recruited out of a large and prestigious Mid-Atlantic law firm to join the Wealth Management/Trust Department of a regional bank as a Vice President/Senior Trust Administrator. Mr. Warren subsequently transitioned his career to Bank of New York Mellon where he worked exclusively and extensively with high and ultra-high net worth families on various wealth management issues including asset protection and legacy planning.

Benjamin Wiener

Ben Wiener is the CEO of Benaiah Co. and Chairman of the Board for Benaiah Holdings, Inc., a family of service companies. With a deep understanding of digital currencies, decentralized ecosystems, and effective trading strategies, Ben excels in navigating the complexities and opportunities within blockchain and emerging Web3 technologies. His academic background in economics and finance, combined with over fifteen years as a business owner, has equipped him with the financial acumen, instruments, and risk mitigation strategies essential for successful portfolio management in the digital currency market. Ben’s expertise has been recognized in leading finance publications such as Forbes, Crain Currency, and Simple.

Throughout his career, Ben has consulted for accredited investors, family offices, trust companies, estate planning councils, corporations, and entrepreneurs worldwide, offering education on structuring and managing diverse investment portfolios in the digital asset market. His entrepreneurial skillset and value-focused mindset position him well to lead Benaiah Management, Benaiah Capital, and Benaiah Custody Solutions. Ben resides in Sioux Falls, SD with his wife Leah and their five children.

Presented by the South Dakota Trust Association