D.A. Davidson Companies has named 2023 recipients of the company’s highest honors, the Bragg Lewis Knutson Community Service Award and the Ian B. Davidson Cultural Excellence Award. These prestigious awards recognize associates for their commitment to community service, professionalism and adherence to the company’s core values.
Andrew Crowell of Los Angeles received the Bragg Lewis Knutson Community Service Award, given in recognition of outstanding volunteer efforts.
Crowell, Vice Chairman, Wealth Management, has a long history of supporting the communities in which he lives and works. For more than 14 years, Crowell has maintained a deep involvement with the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles, an organization spanning 26 locations and a membership community of over 264,000. He has served as a board director and recently as board chair from 2020 to 2023. Through his involvement with the YMCA and D.A. Davidson’s charitable efforts, Crowell developed and introduced the Moneywise Program, a free 5-week financial literacy initiative aimed at empowering teens across a diverse set of backgrounds to invest in their futures through financial know-how. This is a great example of where his passion for his profession and his dedication toward bettering his community come together to create meaningful outcomes for others.
During Crowell’s tenure as board chair, he led the YMCA through the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19. With the Y’s traditional on-site engagement severely hindered, Crowell and the team were resilient and creative, pivoting their efforts to addressing other emergency needs in the community including feeding, clothing, providing medical services, and even access to the internet and tutoring services to more than 1 million Angelenos throughout 2020. In this period, Crowell oversaw the organization’s largest single donation, given specifically to help the YMCA continue its mission and offset the COVID impact. Crowell also successfully managed the search process for a new YMCA CEO and President in 2022.
Through his leadership of D.A. Davidson’s charitable efforts for the last seven-plus years, Crowell’s reach extends throughout the company. He has worked diligently, in coordination with the internal team, to mature and grow the firm’s charitable efforts dramatically over this period. This includes the firm-wide volunteer initiative, D.A. Davidson Day to support the Strength of Giving, as well as the creation of the regional giving committees across a growing footprint.
Carrie McAleer of Bozeman, Montana, and Shari Simonsen of Great Falls, Montana, have been named recipients of the Ian B. Davidson Cultural Excellence Award. This award recognizes D.A. Davidson employees who are committed to exemplifying the firm’s core values, which include service excellence, business ethics and integrity, and community involvement. The honor is named for Ian Davidson, Chairman Emeritus of D.A. Davidson Companies, who developed and nurtured the firm’s core values as a company leader for a number of years.
Carrie McAleer, Senior Registered Practice Coordinator, has distinguished herself as a valued colleague and role model over her almost 13 years with D.A. Davidson. McAleer represents the best of D.A. Davidson — always kind, upbeat, solutions-orientated, and willing to help others. She exemplifies the company’s core values in her work and relationships with colleagues. She demonstrates strong business ethics, commitment to continual learning and professional development, and high standards of service, which have all had a tremendous impact on her team as well the Bozeman branch more broadly. Outside of work, McAleer is dedicated to her family as well as her community, whether as a “big sister” to a local youth, at her church, or other organizations supporting women and children in the Gallatin Valley. As her nominators noted: McAleer always shows how a “true bison” gets it done!
Shari Simonsen, Vice President, Mutual Funds Manager, is celebrated for her approach to leading by example. Her nominators appreciate how her style of leadership is demonstrated on an ongoing basis. She regularly encourages her staff to ask more questions about processes, makes a point of being open for input, and is supportive of her team members accessing more training and taking on more tasks. In these various ways, Simonsen puts her staff in a better position to grow and succeed in their careers. She is a manager who will roll up her sleeves and get in the trenches with her team, and she is consistently willing to lend a hand whenever she can. Even when situations are overwhelming or stressful, Simonsen maintains a positive attitude. She always has a plan and is open to feedback or adjustments. Simonsen finds ways to pivot and get things done even when they seem impossible at first. Her commitment to service excellence, as well as her team, is truly exemplary.
Crowell, McAleer and Simonsen received the peer-driven awards during the company’s recent shareholders meeting in Los Angeles.
About D.A. Davidson Companies
D.A. Davidson Companies is an employee-owned financial services firm offering a range of financial services and advice to individuals, corporations, institutions and municipalities nationwide. Founded in 1935 with corporate headquarters in Great Falls, Montana, and regional headquarters in Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Omaha and Seattle, the company has approximately 1,600 employees and offices in 29 states.
Subsidiaries include: D.A. Davidson & Co., a full-service investment firm providing wealth management, investment banking, equity and fixed income capital markets services, and advice; Davidson Investment Advisors, a professional asset management firm; and D.A. Davidson Trust Company, a trust and wealth management company.