U.S. Options Industry Creates New Lifetime Contribution Award and "Crowd of Fame" CHICAGO (March 7, 2019) – OCC, the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization, today announced the creation of the U.S. Options Lifetime Contribution Award. The award was created by the U.S. options exchanges and the Options Industry Council (OIC), an industry resource managed by OCC. The award will be presented annually to individuals who have made significant contributions to the listed options market and the advancement of the U.S. listed options industry, whether through market structure, industry education, trading or support for overall product development. This award will be in addition to the industry's Joseph W. Sullivan Options Industry Achievement Award. The 2019 Lifetime Contribution Award recipients will be honored at this year's Options Industry Conference, hosted by the MIAX Exchange Group™ (MIAX™) and OCC in Miami, Florida, on May 1-3. The recipients of the Lifetime Contribution Award will be inducted into the OIC's newly-formed "Crowd of Fame", along with all previous Sullivan Award winners, at the Options Industry Conference. The award and the Crowd of Fame were created to recognize a more expansive group of leaders and establish a place for the industry to honor their contributions. "We are delighted to be hosting the 37th annual Options Industry Conference in Miami, Florida, and excited to honor the first-ever Lifetime Contribution Award and Sullivan Award winners along with their friends, families and colleagues at this year's conference," said Thomas P. Gallagher, Chairman and CEO of MIAX. The following individuals are the 2019 recipients of the Lifetime Contribution Award: Tom Brady, Cboe (retired) Kim L. Koppien, NYSE Options Joe Levin, Cboe (posthumous) Daniel May, The May Foundation Dennis May, SMS Factory William H. Morgan, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Jon Najarian, Najarian Family Office and Investitute Anthony Saliba, Matrix Holding Group Andy Schwarz, AGS Specialists, LLC Lee Tenzer, LETCO Thomas Young, Independent Member, PHX "The creation of this award and the 'Crowd of Fame' is a nice way to recognize the contributions that various individuals have made on behalf of the options industry to make these markets more resilient, transparent and innovative to the benefit of retail investors, financial advisors, and institutions who use these markets,"said Mary Savoie, Executive Director of OIC. John Smollen, EVP, Head of Exchange Traded Products for MIAX, added, "We are proud of our role in making this award possible. We are also very appreciative and would like to recognize the collaborative efforts of our fellow exchanges, the OIC and the members of the Options Industry Council Roundtable in helping to establish this award." For more information about the 2019 Options Industry Conference, visit:
I know Andy very well. I stood in front of his specialist post for 25 years. About 8 of those with him as the specialist. Great leader. Great for the public. Made tight-deep markets even during times of stress. You can really see the character of a man when he puts the customer first all the time. He often (us too) let brokers and customers out of errors at our own expense. Those days are gone. Too bad.
Congrats to all my CBOE brothers on the list. They all did a lot of very hard work over the years to advance listed options trading. All great guys too. I miss the old days, a lot. I was on The CBOE pretty much from day one, and each of the guys listed from there helped me out during my career in one way or another. I met Andy a few times over the years, another great guy that helped a ton of people.
Glad that he took the prize. With his brother started a quite successful option monitoring program, spotting unusual option activity in the US market. I learned a lot from him, first on seeking alpha and then on optionmonster. After he sold his business to TS, I see he is still continuing to offer his insights on this topic on NBC. Also, there are several websites, like optionsonar, that built up on his knowledge and are now offering basically the same service. I tried myself to replicate his algorithm, but so far I haven't been able to consistently make money.