Our People
Byron White, CFA, CPA,
BA-Mathematics
University of Texas, 1989
Byron began his career on the sell-side at Prudential Securities working with insurer investment portfolios. Seeing a need for projection and modeling capabilities, he set about working with algorithms to achieve ‘minimum cost funding’ for clients. This led to the development of portfolio structuring methods and ultimately AQS’ ALM structuring tool, PALM. PALM was licensed by Cigna and opened the door to ALM as a portfolio structuring tool. This ‘portfolio blueprinting’ as it was called at the beginning led to portfolio structuring and ultimately, portfolio management for insurers.
Byron is co-founder of AQS and continues to develop software and systems that address the specific needs of insurance companies in addition to overseeing our operations, accounting and financial projection systems.
Larry White,
BS-Mechanical Engineering
Rice University, 1980
Larry began his career in engineering at Conoco, Inc. in financial projection and modeling. Initially creating financial modeling that relied on optimal pipeline loading, his background in operations research led to the concept of the AQS PALM system developed by AQS. He began his career in finance, structure and fixed income in 1986 on the sell-side primarily working with insurers. He too saw a need for financial projection and modeling software and systems. Larry and Byron went on their own in 1996 to develop financial technology software and their first attempt at licensing landed Cigna in 2000. An understanding of software design and fixed income markets proved to be the genesis of AQS Asset Management.
Larry is co-founder of AQS and continues to develop the systems that manage the risks that face fixed income investors.
Stephen Gonzalez, CFA, CPA
BA, Rice University, 2010
Stephen began his career in asset management with a major domestic insurer serving the needs of institutions and high net worth clients. His experience in portfolio management, sales and institutional advisory gives Stephen a perspective unique to the AQS team for the benefit of our insurance clients. Stephen is also engaged in the development of systems that accurately project portfolio income to the bottom line of insurers – a key consideration. Insurers recognize income differently than other investors. Conventional performance metrics do not accurately reflect this and frequently lead to sub-optimal portfolio structures. In turn, sub-optimal structures increase credit risk and volatility.
Stephen manages several portfolios, is on the credit committee, trains our talent and provides mid and back office redundancy.
Lee Stordahl, CFA, CPA, CFP®
BBA Accounting
MS Finance
Texas A&M University, 2002
Lee began his career with a big four public accounting firm in corporate tax. He has pursued a number of interests during his career including construction, working for a family office, and tax consulting for high net worth individuals among others.
Central to each of these endeavors has been financial markets, so it was a natural that Lee would join AQS where he could employ his background in accounting and data management to the needs of the institutional markets; specifically, the insurers that AQS serves exclusively. Lee serves in a number of capacities including SQL data ‘guru’, credit research and reporting.
Edward Gilbert,
BBA, Finance
St. Edward’s University, 2016
Edward began his career in finance as a high school intern at the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) in Austin, Texas. At UTIMCO, he successfully designed and deployed an elegant solution to a previously manual task, saving thousands of hours in back office operations.
Armed with this experience and a broad understanding of computer science and software, Edward developed his understanding of finance at St. Edward’s University in Austin and began as an intern with AQS where he was immediately able to contribute these talents to AQS’ quantitative approach to insurance portfolio management.
After graduating from St. Edward’s with a BBA in Finance in 2016, Edward began as an associate with AQS in January, 2017. He continues to add technological innovation to the AQS repertoire, enabling a more accurate and efficient approach to portfolio management.
Edward enjoys working on his cars and motorcycles. He is currently rebuilding a Mazda Miata – installing a V8 where once rested a straight 4 – and a 1988 Mercedes station wagon. He wants to get 1000 horsepower out of a stock V8 using a turbocharger.
