DePaul University’s Center for Financial Services (CFS) attracted a standing-room-only audience for its Oct. 24 conference that examined how the financial industry is managing the demand for services from Baby Boomer retirees.  The first wave of the nation’s 79 million baby boomers hits the retirement age of 62 this year amid financial uncertainty.

Northern Trust CEO Rick Waddell provided the keynote address for the day-long series of panel discussions and workshops funded by LPL Financial Services at the DePaul Center.  William Obenshain, CFS director, hosted the conference.

Waddell opened the event by expressing optimism that actions taken by the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to address the financial crisis will succeed over time.  “There will be second-guessing, but providing liquidity to deal with the credit crisis will be seen over history as a good thing.” 

“We will come out of this,” he said  “We always do.”

Speakers at the conference included Werner De Bondt, a nationally known authority on investor psychology who is director and chair of the Richard H. Driehaus Center for Behavioral Finance at DePaul; Eric French, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Andy Barksdale, executive vice president, LPL Financial Institution Services; and Kirk Pion, executive director for product management at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois.