What do you like about being a member of the Institute?
Having been an avid consumer of formal professional education programs since 1989, I can attest to the high quality of IWI’s CPWA®, CIMA®, and RMA® programs. My experiences with IWI have been consistently challenging and rewarding. IWI’s in-person conferences, such as ACE, have been great learning experiences as well. The resources IWI makes available to its members are invaluable. I appreciate that IWI strives to continually improve its educational programs, webinars, and conferences by soliciting formal and informal feedback from its members.

What is the best financial advice you have received or given?
My best source of sound financial advice has always been my father. Growing up, he taught me to “pay yourself first” (so I started saving and investing as a teenager), “stay away from debt” (so a home mortgage loan was acceptable but credit card debt was not), and “stay the course” when financial markets get choppy (I learned this one the hard way). As a professional advisor in the 1990s, my best financial advice was to be “tax wise” but not “tax foolish”, meaning do not make financial decisions on the basis of the tax impact before factoring in other key considerations.

What is something not many people know about you?
Something that most people do not know about me is that I composed, performed, and produced two studio albums of alternative/art rock as Black River Sanction, a band of colorful characters that I created and nurtured as part of a larger, satirical community. www.reverbnation.com/blackriversanction.

What is a challenge in the industry right now?
One of the emerging challenges in the financial services industry is the “graying” of the US population. Although we are clearly the wealthiest country in the world, our aging population means that during the next two decades, we’ll be witnessing a lot more decumulation than accumulation of wealth for a major demographic segment. How well advisors deal with the impact of this dynamic on financial markets will be a key determinant of their success in servicing clients.

Early riser or night owl?
Both, early rise and night owl

How has your designation enhanced your career? 
I’ve earned plenty of professional designations in my career, having started pursuing them right at the start. I believed then, as I do now, that the formal education and training behind them was instrumental in helping me accelerate my career progression. I also recognize that the alphabet soup after my name has provided a level of credibility in my profession that without them might have proven challenging. I think of these designations as a sort of professional shorthand. When we see CPWA®, CIMA®, or RMA® (or other designations) after someone’s name, we know that the individual is dedicated to his/her profession.

What is your favorite book or what are you currently reading?
My favorite book is Tom Wolfe’s The Real Stuff (in the 1980s made into a very entertaining Hollywood film), which is an exciting page-turner exploring the lives of the courageous USAF test pilots of the 1950s and 1960s (led by the indominable Chuck Yeager). This is a must read! Presently, I’m reading the memoir of the NFL’s all-time greatest special teams coach, Mike Westhoff, entitled Figure it Out: My Thirty-Two-Year Journey While Revolutionizing Pro Football’s Special Teams. (His journey now continues as he’s recently unretired to join the Denver Broncos coaching staff.)

What are your favorite podcast(s) you are listening to?
I don’t listen to podcasts. I am, however, addicted to Channel 88 on the Sirius/XM platform. This covers the NFL and I listen whenever I’m in my car. So much expertise comes booming across the airwaves. As a listener, it’s like being in a professional education program covering the NFL.

What are you most grateful for?
I am most grateful for my wife, Linda. We have been best friends for 42 years now and married for 37. What a fantastic journey we’ve shared together. I’ve been working from my WealthTec (www.wealthtec.com) home office now since 1999 and we’ve had so much constant, day-to-day contact that many couples could not have endured. It’s a magnificent love story.

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