John Armstead

John Armstead is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Protected Investors of America, where he also works as an equity and bond trading specialist and an investment portfolio manager. He has been an investment manager since 1982 and manages portfolios for a client base that spans individuals, foundations, businesses, municipalities, and retirement plans. He is a member of the CFA Institute (Chartered Financial Analyst Institute) and the CFA Society of San Francisco, and in 2005 he received the Churchill C. Peters Award for "Excellence in Financial Services." He holds a range of securities licenses, including Series 63 and Series 65.

Before joining Protected Investors of America, Armstead was a Registered Representative at Kirkpatrick Pettis Smith Polian, Inc., in Lincoln, Nebraska. According to third-party advisor records, he is affiliated for advisory purposes with Cambridge Investment Research Advisors and has roughly four decades of industry experience. Born in North Platte, Nebraska and raised in Lincoln, he is married to Angela and has two children and three grandchildren.

Protected Investors of America is a long-established firm: it was incorporated on November 4, 1934, when Churchill Peters, Earl Dove, Donald Fuller, and David Sanders each contributed $1,000. The firm is registered with the SEC (CRD/firm #6082) and joined Cambridge Investment Research as a Super OSJ, providing investment advisory services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a registered investment advisor. Its advisory team includes CFP® professionals, CFAs, and asset managers serving clients across more than two dozen states.

• Manages discretionary investment portfolios in public markets — equities and fixed income (bonds) — rather than private-startup or seed-stage venture capital.
• Serves a diversified institutional and individual client base: individuals, foundations, businesses, municipalities, and retirement plans.
• Operates within a CFA-credentialed, compliance-driven wealth-management framework, with advisory services delivered through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors.
• No publicly stated startup/venture "investment thesis" or check-size criteria was found; the role is portfolio management for client capital, not deploying angel capital into companies.