Walking the Walk along with Talking the Talk of Military Transition with Heather Walrath
Military to Financial Planner Podcast
Release Date: 09/11/2024
Finding the Right Firm, Fit, and Focus with Matt Stephens
Military to Financial Planner Podcast
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...
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Walking the Walk along with Talking the Talk of Military Transition with Heather Walrath
Military to Financial Planner Podcast
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...
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Tax Preparation alongside Financial Planning, Teaching CFP Classes, and MQFP Update with Paul Allen
Military to Financial Planner Podcast
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...
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Learning About the Planning Profession and Building College Planning Expertise with Mike Hunsberger
Military to Financial Planner Podcast
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...
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Cross-border Planning and Military Spouse Careers with Stephanie Higgins
Military to Financial Planner Podcast
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...
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DoD Skillbridge Transition to Financial Planning with Omen Quelvog
Military to Financial Planner Podcast
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...
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Networking, Reframing, & Doing Your Own Financial Plan with Arcelia Wicker
Military to Financial Planner Podcast
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...
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Passion, Perseverance, & Pivoting to Career Success with Roland McIntyre
Military to Financial Planner Podcast
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...
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From the Army to the Wirehouse World to RIA with Amy King
Military to Financial Planner Podcast
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...
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Experimenting with Service Models & Niches with Erik Baskin
Military to Financial Planner Podcast
Today I chat with Erik Baskin of Baskin Financial Planning. I still remember some of my first conversations with him back in the very early days of this podcast so it’s a full circle moment for both of us in this episode. Since launching his own RIA in 2021, while still on active duty, Erik has further refined his niche focus to go beyond just the active duty focus to also work with veteran business owners. We chat about his educational progress, his entrepreneurial drive, and building a business to serve life goals as much as career ones. Given that Erik has tried lots of different...
info_outlineI’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