CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwire - Dec 18, 2012) - BMO Retirement Services today announced the hiring of Carolyn Barbee as a Relationship Manager for West Coast clients. Barbee is focused on delivering holistic solutions to plan sponsor clients, providing them with the premier, award-winning service for which BMO Retirement Services has been consistently recognized.

Barbee joins BMO with more than 20 years of experience in the Retirement Planning industry and has an extensive background with 401(k) plans and executive compensation arrangements, as well as 401(a), 403(b) and 457 retirement plans. Previously, she served as a Relationship Manager with TIAA-CREF, responsible for large university clients in the West. Prior to this role, Barbee worked for over 15 years as an ERISA attorney, as well as a Principal for Mercer Human Resource Consulting and a Senior Manager at Ernst & Young.

Located in the Seattle office, Barbee will report to Frank Green, Director of Relationship Management, BMO Retirement Services.

"Carolyn's expertise will be an asset both to our clients and ever-growing BMO team," said Green. "Her experience and guidance will further complement the already strong skill set of her own team, and our clients will benefit greatly from her enthusiasm and breadth of knowledge in the retirement planning industry."

Green noted that BMO Retirement Services continues to seek top talent to support its continued growth as an award-winning provider of retirement services.

Barbee received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Santa Clara and a J.D. from the University of San Francisco. She holds FINRA Series 6 and 63 licenses and is licensed to practice law in California.

About BMO Retirement Services
BMO Retirement Services is an integral part of Global Asset Management and a premier, award-winning provider of retirement, trust and custody services. 

BMO Global Asset Management provides holistic, solution-driven services to our institutional and high-net-worth clients and the BMO family of mutual funds. With a nearly 40-year legacy of fiduciary service -- and goal of promoting retirement readiness to our more than 500,000 participants in over 1,500 retirement plans -- our clients include retirement plans, Taft-Hartley funds, government and public funds, not-for-profit organizations and family offices. BMO Global Asset Management's commitment to service excellence has led us to be recognized by Pension & Investments as one of the Top 100 largest asset managers.

We are a part of BMO Financial Group (NYSE: [ BMO ]), a fully diversified financial services firm with $525 billion total assets and more than 46,000 employees as of October 31, 2012.

BMO Retirement Services is a part of BMO Global Asset Management and a division of the BMO Harris Bank N.A., offering products and services through various affiliates of BMO Financial Group.

BMO Global Asset Management is the brand name for various affiliated entities of BMO Financial Group, that provide trust, custody, securities lending, investment management, and retirement plan services. Certain of the products and services offered under the brand name BMO Global Asset Management are designed specifically for various categories of investors in a number of different countries and regions. Those products and services are only offered to such investors in those countries and regions in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. BMO Financial Group is a service mark of Bank of Montreal (BMO). Investment products are: NOT FDIC INSURED - NO BANK GUARANTEE - MAY LOSE VALUE