About Frank Why?

Simon Sinek, the noted author, tells us we should start out with "why," because that drives both "what" and "how".

When I was a child, my parents were in the restaurant business, which meant a lot of late hours for them, and being shunted around to other relatives for me. At age 7, my mother, who was half of the family business, died. Without any life insurance, of course. That led my father to losing the business and going broke. He remarried, but money was always pretty tight, and his new job security was in the hands of my late mother's family who hated my new stepmother. Stress, anyone?

Fast forward to college. To help with the family finances and avoid college debt, I took on R.O.T.C. scholarship, which, in turn, led to my serving 20 years on active duty as an Air Force officer, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1993.

While I was on active duty, I met a financial advisor. Not only did this individual put me into some investments that a) were inappropriate, and b) in which I lost what little money I had, then. I also watched him, from a distance, destroy another family's inherited wealth. The mogul of this family hated paying any taxes, and this advisor fed on that and, this is in the 1980s, now, when "tax shelters" were all the rage, put a large portion of the family wealth into, get this, jojoba bean futures. What wealth had been accumulated over generations was gone. Watching this happen, I decided that if I were to get into financial services, I could do better than that for MY clients. A lot better. 

Before I retired from the Air Force, I had completed the academic portion of the Certified Financial Planner designation program, which is, if you will, a comprehensive, "combined arms" approach to planning and executing wealth management, one that I implement today. 

The reason, my "why", I'm so passionate about doing what I do well is that I believe I have moral obligation to make sure others don't go through what I, my family, and other families did because of either very inappropriate advice, or no advice, at all. I have the tools, processes, and resources, and I want to make a significant, positive, impact in people's lives.