I grew up in a suburb of Harrisburg, PA called Camp Hill. I can remember liking two subjects as a child: sports and finance. By high school, I knew I wasn’t going to have a career in the former, so I focused on the latter. I took Accounting I and Accounting II as electives in high school, which taught me not only accounting basics, but also personal finance. Back then, universities didn’t have a Financial Planning major like many do today. If they had, I surely would have pursued that major. Instead, I chose an Accounting degree from Penn State University.
In the mid-90s when graduating college, fee-only, fiduciary financial planning was in its infancy. For most new graduates then, if you wanted to start a career in personal finance, you’d likely have to sell insurance, make cold calls, or both. I knew that wasn’t my strong suit. So, I started my career with Marriott International, giving me the opportunity to travel the world and work with some great people. I eventually moved on from there, but spent the first decade of my career in various corporate finance capacities, always questioning whether I should get into financial planning.
In my early 30s, I decided to make the move. I left the corporate world for financial planning. Being smart with money in my 20s and early 30s allowed me the freedom to leave the corporate world for a new path. One that I knew would pay a lot less initially, but would be far more satisfying to me, otherwise.
While pursuing my education requirements for the CFP® designation at Georgetown University, I started part-time at ClearLogic Financial, Inc. (at the time it was Ticknor Atherton & Associates). Over a 10-year career there, I worked my way from part-time employee to partner.
I left ClearLogic Financial in 2018 to open Oakton Financial, LLC. As I hope the rest of this website shows, I believe wholeheartedly in the fee-only, fiduciary business model in which clients’ interests are kept above all others. So, why would I hit the “reset button” yet again (with two young children at home) to start over in the industry? Because after a decade in the industry, I’ve discovered I feel just as passionately about providing that fiduciary, trusted, comprehensive financial planning service, but not charging for that service based on how much money you have accumulated.