In 2010 I sat a few desks away from a planner named Marc Vera. I noticed him in team meetings. Management would roll out something new and Marc would ask the question the rest of us hadn’t gotten to yet. Then he’d ask the one after that. He was working out how it would land with the family sitting across from him next week. And when something was worth doing, he didn’t wait. He’d have it in practice before the rest of us had finished talking about it.
He moved to another firm two years later. That was enough time for me to understand how much pride he took in his work. I’ve been waiting fourteen years for a good excuse to work with him again. As of October 10th, Marc has joined TerraFirma Wealth Partners as our Executive Vice President, Wealth Advisor. Once renovations are complete, he will be working out of our new office in Santa Rosa. Marc is a CFP® professional with 24 years of experience, and has spent nearly all of it doing the same thing I try to do here: sitting with families and helping them make decisions so that they can live out better lives.
So what does this mean for you? Nothing changes in how we work together. I’m still your advisor, and Marc will be building his own client relationships. What changes is that there’s now a second planner in the building who thinks the way I do, and if I’m out, you won’t be waiting on me to get back. Anyone who has been with me a while knows I never wanted TerraFirma to be a one-advisor shop. A plan that depends on a single person has a single point of failure. That’s true of retirement income, and it’s true of the firm that manages it.
At TerraFirma, Marc can spend his time the way he has always wanted to: helping families through deeper planning, with tax planning woven into the investment work and a team behind him to make sure the strategy gets implemented.
Solid ground is easier to find with two people looking. Or is it?
Some of you will remember Margarita Adnani. For two years she ran client service for me, and she did it so well that I stopped noticing how much of it there was. Paperwork moved efficiently. Calls got returned promptly. Nothing fell through the cracks, which is the only compliment that matters in that job. I’m glad to say Margarita joins us on October 13 as Director of Client Services. When you call with a service question, she’s the one who will make it go away.
And Kimberly Melo is taking on more, not less. With Margarita handling service, Kimberly moves into the planning work itself, helping to build and execute the strategies Marc and I put in front of you. You’ll see her fingerprints on your plan even when you don’t see her name on the email.
Solid ground is easier to find with four people looking.