Meet Our Team
- Registered Investment Adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission
- Chartered Financial Analyst, MBA, CIMA, Series 65 and all compliance registration and fulfillment
- Over 100 years of combined industry experience in Personal Asset Management, Corporate Asset Management, Financial Planning, Business Succession Planning and Retirement Planning & Administration
- Combined experience managing personal and corporate assets in excess of $300M
- Presently managing and supporting approximately 400 individual and corporate clients in excess of $140M in assets under management
- Completely customized client service model delivering a superior client experience for nearly fifty years
- Experience working with multiple generations of client families providing long-term strategies and advice for legacy planning
- Member of both the SIPC (Securities Investors Protection Corporation) and FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority)
Frank E. Cooper, III
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Frank grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida and graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Presbyterian College in 1964. After five years of working with his family business, Anderson Surgical Supply Co., he shifted his focus to personal investments in 1969 and began working as an assistant to a general partner of Reynolds & Co., a predecessor firm of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
In 1989, Frank became certified as a Portfolio Manager with Shearson Lehman Brothers, Inc. and successfully transitioned his practice from a transactional, commission-based structure to a fee-based model to better align his interests with his clients. In the fall of 1999, Frank decided to leverage his experience and client-centric focus and established his own firm under the name Cooper Investment Group via a semi-independent platform with Wheat First Securities.
In 2006, he completed his independent transition to Cooper Capital Management, LLC through a completely independent platform supported by Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network. Frank became a student of the financial markets through extensive reading and hands-on practice for 52 years. He has constructed thousands of custom portfolios through a deep understanding of the personal needs and circumstances of each client family. He continues to incorporate a proactive asset allocation model and manages investments through a mix of fundamental and technical analysis while observing market environments and behaviors on a daily basis.
Frank’s investment strategy is focused on helping client families stay in harmony with the financial markets by monitoring their investment portfolios regularly. Frank believes in observing what the financial markets are actually doing rather than forecasting what they might do.
Frank is a Presbyterian Elder who also co-founded Young Life of Tampa in 1972. Frank has 3 children and 3 grandchildren. Outside of the office he enjoys reading, cooking, fishing, hiking, traveling, dancing to 60’s music and watching sunsets on the beach at Pass-a-Grille.
Charles E. Poe, MBA, CFA, NSSA®
Chief Investment Officer
Charlie has spent the last twenty plus years in the investment business and he has managed over $200M in assets. His professional career began in college as a summer intern with both Smith Barney (1995) and Robinson Humphrey (1996) and continued after graduation in 1996 as an Investment Officer at Southern Family Insurance Company. Charlie also served as the Junior Portfolio Manager at Poe Family Investment Company, a private investment partnership.
From 2000-2002, Charlie attended and graduated from IESE, an international graduate business program in Barcelona, Spain that consistently ranks as one of the top five MBA programs in the world in The Economist rankings. During the summer of 2001, he worked with the Disciplined Growth Investment Team that managed $40 billion in assets at Alliance Capital (now AB Global) in New York City. Charlie received a Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 2001. From 2002-2006, Charlie served as Chief Investment Officer of a conglomerate of three insurance companies under Poe Financial Group. Charlie also served as the Investment Manager of Poe Family Investment Company from 2002-2011. During his tenure with Poe Family Investment Company, he oversaw a variety of asset classes from equities to fixed income to hedge funds, private equity and venture capital. He has experience investing across a wide range of asset classes and this experience brings tremendous value to his current role of Chief Investment Officer at Grand Central Investment Group.
Charlie has volunteered at Academy Prep of Tampa since 2006 by co-teaching a class called Focus on Success, a class that he co-designed on vision, purpose, beliefs and goals. He loves to help people reach their goals and this translates well when working with clients at Grand Central Investment Group. He believes in the power of education and he serves on the education committee at Academy Prep of Tampa and the Glazer Children’s Museum. He also serves on the Product Development committee at non-profit Frameworks of Tampa Bay. Charlie is a member of the Business Advisory Council at the Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida. He grew up in Tampa and currently lives here with his wife Corey, their three children, their cat and dog.
Michelle E. Halpin
Michelle has worked with Frank for over 35 years and has been an immensely valuable partner throughout that time. As Senior Vice President of Operations, Michelle is responsible for managing the company’s day-to-day functions related to operational procedures as well as building strong customer relationships as the first point of contact for all client requests. She has developed a strong rapport with the client base and has become a critical relationship manager for Grand Central’s clients.
Michelle graduated from East Carolina University in Greenville, NC and has worked in the investment industry for 43 years. She and her husband Bill have been married for 32 years and have one son, Troy, who graduated from the University of Florida and works in Santa Barbara, CA as a Senior Software Engineer. Michelle spends her free time with family and friends, volunteering with The Humane Society of Tampa Bay and Compassion Kind, supporting her favorite sports teams, and enjoying the beach.
Janet Moser
Janet joined the Grand Central team in 2015 after spending nearly fifteen years in the Municipal Public Finance arena. She is a veteran of the US Navy where she gained extensive IT knowledge as a Data Systems Technician. Janet is responsible for the day to day administrative support of the management team along with helping to manage our IT platforms.