Areas of Focus

Just as the 76 million Baby Boomers once transformed American culture, so too are they redefining retirement. No longer is retirement a time to sit back and wait for the rest of your life to unfold. Instead, today’s retirees have busy, active lifestyles with the freedom to chase new opportunities, revive old passions and realize long-held dreams.

Our approach to investment planning relies on core principles developed and tested since the inception of our firm. These principles are:
Asset allocation provides the foundation to managing portfolio risk and return potential;

• Tax efficiency and asset location are critical;
• Portfolio expenses must be scrutinized;
• No single money management firm can be all things to all people; and
• Our most important role is to be an objective advocate. Our goal is to control costs, be tax efficient and manage risk. This provides an effective way of helping achieve your financial goals.

Family owned businesses – even successful ones – don’t often survive into future generations. Two obvious reasons for this are family conflict and federal estate taxes. But a third reason is perhaps even more influential: failure to design a proper succession plan.

Business owners are typically so busy with day-to- day challenges that they often have little time to think about who will take over the business once they’re gone. But the consequences of having no plan in place could be catastrophic to the family, employees and others who depend upon the business.

Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” This is true no matter how grand or modest a contribution you can afford. And the fact is, your gift or bequest can have a significant and beneficial impact on the lives of others – if you know how to give most effectively.

A charitable gift of a life insurance death benefit can multiply the impact of your donation many times over. It allows you to leverage your gift and ensure that your own personal contribution impacts your charity directly in a way greater than you ever thought possible. Even if you have a limited discretionary cash flow, you can make a meaningful gift using a life insurance policy while your charity could receive significant sums of money.

Say the words “life insurance” to some people, and you’re likely to get a less than enthusiastic response. But, more and more frequently, people are discovering that life insurance can be a helpful financial planning tool. Life insurance offers a way for you to help provide for your family, protect your business, and make charitable gifts without reducing your estate.

Paying for a child’s college education is an expensive proposition – but not an impossible one. With an appropriate strategy, you can go a long way to meeting this challenge whether your child is still in preschool or already in high school.

Your net worth doesn’t grow overnight. It involves hard work, focus and persistence. Unfortunately, unless you apply the same skills to preserving your estate, you can lose a good portion to estate taxes after you die. The problem: Transferring assets – even to your own family – can be a taxable event. That’s why you need to find creative, effective ways to build and preserve your estate.

However, there is no need to rush to your estate planning attorney immediately after Congress changes the tax code. However, it’s more imperative to review your estate plan after major life events—for example, the birth of a child, an illness or a divorce. You may also want to review your estate plan if you switch jobs or experience a sudden change in your family’s finances.

Taxes. Living expenses. Inflation. Death. That’s about as much as most people can predict about their future. But what if you could get a realistic perspective on the ability of your income and assets to meet your long- term needs and objectives? What if you could analyze a variety of ‘what-if’ scenarios to prepare for all the contingencies the future might hold?

The perfect match: Your financial needs and our custom solutions.

Sound financial health. It takes in-depth analysis. It takes careful planning. It takes solutions, tailored to help meet your unique requirements. We employ a disciplined, structured approach to financial planning which, by design, ensures that we incorporate all of your needs, goals and objectives, in developing a financial plan that’s appropriate for you.

As your business grows and you add staff, choosing the right benefits and retirement plans becomes more complicated. You have many options to choose from. That variety, however, gives you a better chance of picking a plan that more precisely meets your needs – such as rewarding key employees, beefing up their savings, and providing incentives for them to stay with your company.