I grew up Irish-Catholic-Urban-Democrat in a blue collar Eastern suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. My maternal grandfather was the President of the Board of Alderman under “Boss” Big Tom Pendergast when Kansas City was a near-monarchy. I lived with my mother’s family near the border of Independence/Kansas City/Raytown, went to high school in Raytown, then on to the University of Kansas to study music theory, radio/tv/film and the effects of 3.2 beer on bladder health. My B.A. is in liberal arts. After a few years working and traveling, I returned to KU, married and motivated and earned two more degrees, the last a PhD in geography.

Our family didn’t have money, so to pay for my education I’ve had many jobs, working with all sorts of people. I’ve been a janitor, a mover, a warehouseman, a delivery truck driver, a singing waiter, a pizza cook, a bartender, a cab driver, a carpet salesman, I’ve worked and started businesses in exploration and geophysical services, raised money to drill oil wells, and learned to sell and serve in many varied environments with all the people I met along the way.

After a short stint teaching geography in Kansas, I entered the exploration service business in Denver in 1976. When  the oil business busted in 1984, I took my investment and financial analysis business experience and my wife and two daughters to Washington, DC to assist a former U.S. Senator who I’d partnered with in an exploratory oil project in Alaska in a real estate syndication. For three years, I learned financial services, did due diligence and marketing work for an investment broker-dealer and earned the Certified Financial Planner™ designation. In 1986, I founded a wealth management, tax and financial planning practice which I sold to my partners in 2002. During the twenty years I worked as a financial advisor, I was named to Worth Magazine’s Top 250 Best Financial Advisors five years running. I was an active member of Financial Planning Association (and its predecessors) and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors.  I was active in local and regional leadership with colleagues in that profession. Over the years, I was a conference speaker on various topics and I was also a newsletter contributor, editor and publisher for over 20 years for my own clients.

Since 1987, I have been a Certified Financial Planner™ licensee in good standing. In 2002 I met Ron Peremel and we created an online portal for advisors to give advice to the online public called Myfinancialadvice, Inc. MFA pioneered the design, marketing, delivery and monitoring of web and workplace personal financial advice sessions by expert financial advisors who wanted to help middle income people online.  The MFA portal and monetization engine have received a Four Star Rating from Kiplingers, a Best of the Web award from AOL, and have been covered extensively in industry and popular press articles from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Employee Benefit News and others.

We have found in our work that the public is confused about the value of expert financial advice since insurance and investment sales has used advice as a “loss leader”, giving advice “free” to induce investment and insurance policy purchase.  This site is a forum for advisors and the public to meet and educate advisors and for advisors to learn what advice the public needs. It is our hope that through our efforts here, regular American people will learn how to ask for and receive excellent value from an advice session and that professional advisors will learn to give the public what they demand.

I live in Denver and am married to a retired Methodist pastor. We have two grown daughters and four grandchildren. I no longer provide advice personally.  I help great advisors and American families who need advice find and interact with each other.