My fascination with money started small — literally, with a piggy bank, then a coin collection, then the moment I first grasped compounding, what Einstein called the eighth wonder of the world. I come from blue-collar roots; my parents were teachers who taught me how to make complicated things simple, and my depression-era grandparents taught me the value of a dollar long before I ever opened a spreadsheet. I started at this company as an intern, switched my college major to finance because of it, and came back after graduation to earn my certifications and learn the business from the ground up — shadowing the owner and soaking in everything I could. The most important thing I picked up wasn't technical. As an introvert, I had to work at the people side of the job, because a plan nobody understands is a plan nobody follows — and a plan that isn't followed isn't a plan at all.
I believe in being straight with people, including about my own mistakes. I once took every dollar I'd earned from a summer internship and put it into a mutual fund, only to watch it drop 40% right before I needed that money back at school — a hard lesson in not putting short-term money into long-term investments, and one I still share with clients today. Years later, my wife and I bought our first house with so little cash to spare that we emptied the quarters from our car's center console to go to a movie the night before closing. We put everything we had into that deposit, then leveraged it into our next house — same monthly payment, real equity built. My philosophy comes straight out of moments like these: understand what you own and why you own it. A well-built financial plan should have an answer for anything life throws at it.
I work with pilots, engineers, doctors, dentists, business owners, and widows — people with their own expertise, who respect mine, and we stay in each other's lane. As a business owner myself, I know what it takes to run one and build it into a real financial plan. And because my own mother is a widow, I understand what that transition asks of a family, not just a portfolio. Outside the office, my wife and I are raising three kids — Navy, Haven, and Leighton — plus two dogs, Bruin and Grizzly. Leighton has Down syndrome, and our whole family rallies around her; she's the light of our life and has a way of making anyone smile — a reminder that you never know when someone needs one, and how something small can change a person's whole day. She's shaped how I think about what really matters, and about working with families and clients facing challenges of their own. We coach cheer and lacrosse, support the girls in dance and basketball, and spend our free time biking, walking, cooking, and getting up north or to the beach whenever we can. Someone once asked me, at a pretty young age, what it means to be wealthy. My answer then is still my answer now: have money, be healthy, and be present — and some days, having none of the first one at all is what makes you the richest person in the room. Seventeen years into this career, as a CFA and CFP, that's still the plan I want to help you build.