Military to Financial Planner Podcast

I’m excited to welcome a friend and colleague who has a little bit different career track today. Drew Stamp serves as the Chief Operations Office for the Donovan and Bank Foundation - a, nonprofit organization that focuses on helping special operators transition to a life of peace, balance, and contentment. 

We chat about Drew’s early personal finance experiences, how he learned he loved to teach and help other with financial literacy, what studying for the CFP exam was like even though he had never worked in a traditional job in financial planning before, and how he found his way to his current role. If you are interested in financial literacy and education, you might find some of his answers surprising.

With his wide range of experiences, Drew shares some incredibly practical advice born out of personal experience and the hundreds of briefings and thousands of hours of conversation. We could all benefit from his advice on how to better deliver financial education as well as advice!

Drew has the benefit of looking back over his many years of transition counseling and shares the common themes he sees including how important it is to have your own financial house in order and be prepared for the emotional, mental, and identity challenges that come with leaving the military experience. 

Lastly, we chat about the changes and perceptions of current military members, if BRS has changed things from where Drew sees it, and what it means to work with the military population as they approach their career transitions. So here’s my interview with Drew Stamp. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-stamp/ 

https://www.donovanbank.org/ 

Today on the podcast I’m joined by Matt Stephens from Willow Chute Financial. Matt has had a winding career path that has taken him to a variety of roles, firms, structures, and responsibilities. During his career in financial services, he has also served as an officer in the Army Reserves since 2008. In our discussion, we chat about the pros and cons of a variety of financial services compensation and service structures and how that factored into his career decisions.

Given the variety of structures as well as front and back office roles, I ask Matt about the traits he found for those that were successful in the variety of positions so you can better understand and find your best fit. Matt also shares about his special prospecting opportunities to network and receive referrals from CPAs as well as help clients solve very specific tax problems. 

Lastly, we chat about the lessons learned along the way for other people looking for their first position in this profession or looking to chart their best path. Matt’s grit and determination helped him persevere through lots of challenges before he ultimately found his way to his current broker dealer and the best fit for him and his clients. Be sure to listen for the pearls of wisdom about the things to watch out for when evaluating different job opportunities and structures. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattstephens730/

https://www.willowchutefinancial.com/ 

Securities offered through Avantax Investment Services Inc. (member FINRA/SIPC). Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services Inc.

I’m so grateful to have Heather Walrath joining us on the podcast today. She currently serves as financial education and accredited financial counselor at the Navy Mutual Aid Association.  As part of the Education Team, Heather speaks one-on-one with servicemembers and spouses and provides group presentations to servicemembers and families across the country to  increase their knowledge and understanding of financial matters. Her areas of expertise include military and survivor benefits, including VA benefits and Survivor Benefit Plan.

Heather talks about her early career interest in this profession after being an AFCPE FINRA Fellow. Her early volunteer experiences helped her build her skills and showed her how much she loved this work. Later on, she started out giving presentations on a part-time basis for Navy Mutual before that eventually grew into a full-time role.

Over her career, Heather has given hundreds of presentations to thousands of servicemembers and their families about military transition. But as you will hear, she shares just as many lessons learned from her own experience going through military transition earlier this year when her active duty spouse retired. We spend a good deal of time talking through her experience and wisdom of the transition and retirement process, how to find good source material, and the advice that can help you make an even more successful military transition yourself. I know this will be a big benefit to all our listeners both getting ready for their own transition or working with others who are! 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-walrath-afc%C2%AE-mqfp%C2%AE-6531b077/

https://www.navymutual.org/mission-educate/

https://www.navymutual.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/candid_conversations_flyer-2024-01.23.2024.pdf 

https://www.choosefi.com/military-fi-optimizing-your-financial-plan-before-military-retirement-daniel-kopp-cfp-ep-487/

I’m excited to have Paul Allen on the podcast today. In this wide-ranging conversation we discuss his first exposure to the financial services industry which rubbed him the wrong way and sparked an interest in doing his own financial planning work. Later on, Paul wanted to help educate fellow members of his military community so he got his CFP so he could teach financial literacy classes, all the while wondering if there was a way he could just get paid to give financial advice instead of selling financial products.

Paul shares how he stumbled into the world of fee-only RIAs and tax practice around the same time with his tax practice, PIM Tax, rapidly taking off. He later merged with Sean Gillespie to form Redeployment Wealth Strategies to help him better divide his time and expertise. We spend time chatting about his tax training and expertise including getting the Enrolled Agent designation, the common challenges he sees in military tax returns, training and experiences you can get to learn more about tax preparation, and who might be a good fit for the tax side of the profession as opposed to the planning.

We also talk about his experiences and passions to help advance the profession through his work as the Program Director of CFP Program in Regent University’s School of Law. Paul shares about their focus there the traits he sees teaching the capstone course that set people up for success on the CFP exam. 

Lastly, we round out the conversation around the Military Qualified Financial Planner (MQFP) designation including the goal of helping military and veteran families find great financial advice in a fee-only, fiduciary manner that is tailored to the military experience. I love Paul’s knowledge, passion, and depth of experiences and resources he shares in this episode. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pdallen64/

https://pimtax.com/

https://www.redeploymentwealth.com/ 

https://militarytaxexperts.org/

https://militaryfinancialadvisors.org/

https://explore.regent.edu/ma-financial-planning-law?

https://mqfp.org/

In this podcast episode, I sit down with Mike Hunsberger to learn more about his career journey across an Air Force career and launching his own RIA, Next Mission Financial Planning. He shares about his early experiences with being sold permanent life insurance and high fee mutual funds which led him to get more interested in personal finance. Thanks to many years of his own good financial decisions, including building lots of spreadsheets to analyze his own military career analysis, gave him options to consider financial planning as a second career.

As part of his exportary foray, Mike learned about XY Planning Network and came to their conference in 2019 where he met many other like-minded folks that ultimately started MFAA. It solidified his decision to make the leap and he finished his CFP coursework not long after from the American College thanks to their veteran scholarship program. When he passed the CFP exam and launched his firm, Mike shares how he felt like he had realistic expectations but even they were too lofty at first. I appreciate how he shared about the struggles to market to clients in those first few years.

We also dive deeper into the world of college planning as Mike has expertise in that planning area including integrating military benefits into paying for college. Mike talks about his process for clients and the tools and techniques he uses to help them make the best decisions for their families. This is one of the most emotionally charged topics in financial planning so you won’t want to miss his expertise! 

https://nextmissionfinancialplanning.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-hunsberger/

https://ronlieber.com/books/the-price-you-pay-for-college/

In this podcast episode, I’m joined by Stephanie Higgins to talk about her journey into the financial planning profession. As a military brat as well as military spouse, she has spent a great deal of time overseas so we talk about the challenges of employment and building a career while OCONUS. I love hearing about her personal journey of learning about finances as she took over her household money management and the blending of that with her prior career background and education in psychology. 

Stephanie shares how she pursued the AFC and MQFP as well as currently preparing for the CFP exam. Her persistence in networking and seeking opportunities has paid off throughout her career and I don’t want you to miss those parts of the story. We also chat about her current role as a paraplanner in a firm that specializes in expats with the parallels there from her own personal experiences. 

Lastly, she shares about her latest endeavors starting to do some financial coaching for expats and her career advice for other military spouses in similar positions of looking for work overseas. Her passion for this profession shines through and I know you will glean some helpful insights for your own career path! 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-higgins-afc-cfp/

https://www.connectedfinancialplanning.com/about

I’m excited to welcome Omen Quelvog to the podcast today. If his name sounds familiar to you, it’s because we have talked about him on this podcast before when Sean Gillespie and I chatted about the DoD Skillbridge program and how Omen was the first MFAA Skillbridge intern. We cover a lot of ground in this episode including Omen’s own financial experiences and love of spreadsheets and personal finance. 

I love the personal anecdotes and stories that Omen weaves in including how his own personal financial plan set him and his family up for options post-military life. As the first Skillbridge intern for MFAA, Omen was willing to be that guinea pig and his feedback, flexibility, and adaptability ultimately set him and the firm he worked for up for success.

We talk about the roles and responsibilities Omen had during those first few months working as an intern and how the challenges didn’t always line up with the expectations going in. Ultimately, Omen’s entire career trajectory changed as well with him staying on at Clear Insight Wealth Management in contrast to his initial plans. 

Be sure to listen towards the end for the self-examination and career advice that Omen shares about who is a likely good fit for an MFAA Skillbridge intern. Given the nature of most MFAA firms being small RIAs, it takes some adaptation and self-starting flexibility to succeed in these kinds of roles.

Omen also wants to extend an offer to connect if you were interested in learning more about his story or getting some perspective on your own career journey. You can connect with him on LinkedIn. If you are specifically interested in being a Skillbridge intern for MFAA, I encourage you to take a closer look at all the member firms to determine which of them you might be interested in working with and network from there. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/omenquelvog/

https://www.myciwm.com/about

We continue the recent theme of podcast listeners becoming podcast guests as I’m joined by Arcelia Wicker on the episode today. He is a financial planner at Bay Capital Advisors in the Virginia Beach area. 

We chat about his personal experiences of personal finances and how going through Financial Peace University helped him and his wife get their own financial house in order before going on to help host and teach the program for many years. When he realized that he would do that kind of work for free, it sparked an exploration of how to break into the world of financial advice and become the financial planner that he had always wanted.

Thanks to getting out of his comfort zone and networking with his local FPA and NAPFA groups, Arcelia built a support network that helped him find his own path. We talk about his educational experience through the American College CFP/ChFC program, how Hannah Moore’s externship gave practical and real-life examples of planning with clients, and how he balanced study time with active duty, family responsibilities, and prepping for the career transition.

I love Arcelia’s transparency across the lessons learned including how he ultimately passed the CFP exam, how he overcame a rescinded job offer, and his reframing of these setbacks. One of the things that struck me the most was how having his own financial house in order including being prepared to make their family lifestyle work post-military without a second income gave him the financial and mental capacity to wait for the right position. I know you can also find inspiration from his lessons learned and career advice.  

Arcelia also wants to extend an offer to connect if you are interested in learning more about his story or getting some perspective on your own career journey. You can connect with him on LinkedIn by checking the show notes for his profile.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/arcelia-wicker-jr-chfc/

https://baycapitaladvice.com/

https://amplifiedplanning.com/externship/

I’m grateful to have Roland McIntyre on the podcast for this episode. He is an XYPN member and founder of Mountaintop Wealth, his own fee-only RIA where he focuses on serving underrepresented and underserved communities including those in military or public service. We got connected awhile back and after meeting each other at XYPN Live last year, I knew I had to have him on the podcast to talk about his career journey. 

Roland shares about his origin story of money and his desire to be a financial advisor going back to 7th grade. After leaving active duty, he was first told he needed sales experience before he could get into the financial services industry … so he did just that, selling cable door to door. That theme of persistence comes up throughout our conversation and I love his passion and dedication to this profession.  

Roland ultimately went to work for AIG where he rapidly advanced through a variety of roles and positions, learning the ins and outs of the company products, how to communicate in plain language with clients and other professionals alike, and expanding his knowledge across many areas of financial planning.

Although he admits he never considered himself an entrepreneur, Roland is building a great firm that meets clients where they are at with a desire to help close the racial wealth gap. We talk about his variety of service and fee options that help educate clients who have never worked with a fee-only advisor before and how his educational content and community networking are compounding the marketing impact. I know you will learn something from Roland’s career journey!

https://mountaintopwealth.com/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/roland-mcintyre-cfp%C2%AE-chfc%C2%AE-1b8b1b23/

I’m excited to welcome Amy King on the podcast today. We start with her origin story that started with some fortuitous conversations about money and investing that ignited a passion for the subject and ultimately led her to the CFP while still on active duty. Through her personal network, she got a first job preparing taxes and doing paraplanning work for a small RIA while still on active duty that gave her a wealth of experience and knowledge.

When Amy retired from the Army, she ultimately ended up at a major wirehouse and since that was different than many of our former guests, she shared about her experiences there including the training, culture, working on her team, and personal challenges she had in working with many of the wealthy clients there. Importantly, we also touch on some of the decision points she had to make when it came time to leave including the careful steps she took to leave in accordance with her company agreements. 

We catch her early in her own firm journey to get some of those lessons learned while they are still new, including how she has pivoted to capture more project, advice-only work for DIY clients. She also shares about the reason why she studied for many different designations to better gain the confidence she needed to work with clients, especially in her niche of federal government benefits. I loved Amy’s transparency and authenticity and I know you will too!

https://www.instarfp.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-s-king/