Good
Investment
Roselle Park Local 27’s
James Kompany ready to
show members the money
as PBA’s appointee to
PFRS Trustee Board
■ BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
When SB5 moved through the state legislature in March,
NJ State PBA President Pat Colligan envisioned the type of
member he could appoint to the new PFRS Trustee Board
charged with making this new, groundbreaking pension
system succeed. Dreamed about it, even. Could there be a
PBA member with credentials for the Trustee Board who has
an MBA? And experience working on Wall Street? And certi-
fied financial planning and investment advising expertise?
Roselle Park Local 27 member James Kompany might be
that dream come true. He checks the boxes to be the PBA’s
appointed trustee – as the new PFRS allows from each of
New Jersey’s four public safety unions – and adds creden-
tials nobody ever dreamed of. He is an Accredited Asset
Management Specialist (AAMS) and has a Series 65 license
to act as an investment advisor. He worked for Deutsche
Bank, Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo and has served as the
treasurer and financial secretary on the Local 27 executive
board for several years.
Could Kompany really be a law enforcement officer? He’s
more like RoboTrustee, especially when you get a look at his
bodybuilding competition-ready frame. He’s rock-solid in
every way, so much so that Kompany garnered the physi-
cal fitness award in his academy class filled with 21- and
22-year-olds, despite coming into the profession at age 30.
“I’m the investments guy,” confirms Kompany, recogniz-
ing the PBA’s desire to have him on the eminent four-mem-
ber investment council of the new PFRS. “I want to be the
guy who has the background to understand the lingo and
the investment jargon and make sure members won’t be
taken advantage of.”
Kompany is big on goal-setting, and he described the
one for the new PFRS system—known as Chapter 55—by
commenting, “The importance of this so monumental and
historical that my first thought is, ‘Don’t screw this up.’” He
looks at the never-been-done-before aspect of the mission
and flaunts what he calls his motto:
“No pressure at all.”
Perhaps pressure does not compute for Kompany. How
CONTINUED ON PAGE 40
www.njcopsmagazine.com
■ NOVEMBER 2018 39