Investing for the future you want - to achieve success by your own standards - cannot be a part time job in today's often turbulent, always changing world. Your money counts and your unique style and feelings about it count a lot too. That's why your financial planning and investment advisors need to know you, share your vision, and be able to suit your strategies and portfolios to who you are...not some idea they have of what you should be.

Our practice leads you through a continuous process of financial decision-making that makes sure we understand you and what you really want to accomplish. Then we show you your options and make our specific recommendations.

The only passage through the maze of planning and investment options is to plot your own course. The only good way to predict the future is to create it. We approach each case with a fresh perspective and sensible,down-to-earth, straight-forward thinking that you will find both refreshing and compelling.

• No mass-produced plans pulled together from a can of standard options.
• No bells and whistles that attract by distracting you from fundamental issues.
• No prima donna planning to raise the eyebrows of your other professional advisors.
• Just clear strategies to help meet your real goals.

One other surprise you are sure to like is that we work at your pace. Oh, we may nudge you when you want us to or point out why you might want to move sooner rather than later to take advantage of an opportunity, but you will set the pace. Haste usually hurts more than it helps and we know that too.

We know that we have the best professional-client relationships with clients who set their own pace, make their own determinations and enlist professional help when they want to make fully informed decisions.

It's a myth that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Truth is, when the going gets tough, the smart get professional help.

Our job is to keep the increasingly complex from becoming too complicated to manage.

Whether you plan to stop working, slow down a bit or just keep at it, only effective planning now allows you the options later. Careful planning helps you meet your current objectives and future. What plans do you have to:

• Prepare to maintain your current lifestyle during retirement.
• Yield income from dollars devoted to your later years.
• Minimize the income tax on income coming out...and along the way as you get there.
• ERISA better utilize qualified plans to achieve retirement goals.
• Retain ownership and control of your money.
• Obtain income-tax-free death benefits.

Not all of these benefits can be had in one plan. The many variables make retirement planning complex, but the benefits--and the costs to obtain them--make careful planning essential. Our study and recommendation of suitable options help you make informed decisions about which route best serves your interests.

Qualifed plans often form the basis for retirement funding. Your long-term service with your company gives you the opportunity to accumulate money through tax-deferred accumulation of capital. Moreover, qualified plans help:

• Attract quality employees.
• Reduce costly turnover.
• Increase employee incentive.

Planning is not a one-time thing. Professional studies conducted before you adopt a plan, and periodically thereafter, assure that your company's retirement program always operates smoothly, efficiently, and within the law. With numerous tax law changes over the past several years, the scope and complexity of each plan's accountabilities have grown. To safeguard your interests, we assist with pension administration services, reducing your need for day-to-day involvement in the management of your plan.

And what's it all for if your employees don't know how to value what you provide? To make sure that your people understand and appreciate what you have arranged for them, and to comply with ERISA annual notification requirements, we can help you deliver the right messages to your people...when required and throughout the year. Our planning provides you with options.

Succession planning for the business owner is perhaps the most difficult of all long-term business issues because so much is at stake. Like an artist selling his favorite work or a parent letting go of the apron strings, the owner of a hand-built business often feels great reluctance to give up control by selling and stepping aside.

"Hi, Dad. Here's your paycheck." --- Not words you may want to hear if you head a family business and you've been the godfather for thirty years. "Hello, Bill. This is Jane. Now that Ted's gone and the funeral is behind us, I need to know how I will be paid and when you expect me to come to work."--- Words no less frightening to the business owner whose partner dies. The list of potentially catastrophic contingencies is long, but its examination should not be avoided.

Focusing on key issues and planning how to control the transfer of a business interest is critical. What are your objectives, and what have you done about them?

• Turning your business over to family - once they are competent to run it
• Guaranteeing you will be paid for it - even if the people who buy your business run it down.
• Fixing the selling price of your business - and making sure you get it.
• Deciding when to get out, what you want out of it, and how to get what you want when you want it.
• Controlling who your partners become when your current partners are gone.
• Retiring with pride, dignity and financial security.
• Cashing out the interest of an owner who is too sick or hurt to work for an extended period.

Our planning helps make business succession successful.

Wealth preservation and transfer costs are constantly rising. Terminal tax liquidity requirements are often an unknown burden to even the most strategically minded people of means. As situations change, even the best plans need adjusting. We treat estate planning as an ongoing process of review and adjustment - not a place for complacency.

It is not a stroke of brilliance that makes an estate plan successful. It is the methodical examination of the facts, considered along with your goals, by someone who really knows you and the issues that apply to your situation. We know people with net worth that they want to protect. We know business, business owners, and the pressing issues and joys of ownership. We know what retiring from a long professional career is all about and how difficult personal planning can become when you'd rather be doing other things.

In our careful approach to estate planning, we examine contingencies and alternatives until you are satisfied with our recommendations.

For owners and others who want to reap the benefits of estate planning, we offer plans that seek to:

• Leave intact what you want to pass on to others, or transfer in the manner that you wish.
• Assure you're getting out of your business exactly what you deserve, not just getting out of your business.
• Provide time for children to grow up in the business.
• Assure parity for the children who should not inherit your business.
• Helps minimize the inevitable tax bite.

Regardless of the size of the puzzle that must be assembled to achieve your vision, no detail can be left out. We believe that being a professional means doing all the routine tasks correctly, every time.

Purchasing insurance has risks and hazards as well as opportunities. The only statement an insurance company makes when it sells a product are the contractual guarantees. Sales illustrations are not promises or guarantees. Rather, they are hypothetical illustrations of what might happen if certain assumptions come true.

To reasonably assure that you will achieve the long-term result you want at the time you purchase insurance, the procedural standard of "due care" should be applied to assess offers and make informed decisions.

To decide the suitability of an offer, we perform "due care" and evaluate:

• The Need - Based on your goals and situation. Example: Deciding whether the estate tax should be paid upon the death of the first or second spouse.
• The Type of Contract - Designed to meet the need. Example: Knowing when to choose first or second-to-die life insurance; or universal, variable or whole life.
• The Insurer - Evaluation of the insurers offering proposals to decide if they are strong enough to keep their contractual promises.
• The Cost - Because the best value may not be the lowest premium, and the cheapest premium may really cost you the most.
• Your Risk Tolerance - In the risk management process, we must consider your risk tolerance. Informed buyers assess and compare the policies offered and decide how much risk they will accept.