I am incredibly proud to announce that today I am launching Evergreen Retirement Planning! Over the past 15 years I have been incredibly lucky to have worked at two great firms. I started my young career with three years at Allen & Company of Florida, Inc. Having graduated from college in 2006, those three short years already felt like a lifetime. I started learning the business as the market peaked in 2007 only to see the market go through the worst financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 since the Great Depression. So many things happened during this time that industry experts and even Fed chiefs did not think was possible: massive companies went out of business and many retirees needed to reconsider their plans.

Seeing what the markets could do in such a short period of time had an incredible impact on me both personally and professionally. In 2009 I came back to my home state of Massachusetts in 2009 and continued working with clients for the last 12 years. As a financial advisor, while consulting with clients I sometimes feel like a curious fly on the wall experiencing how people make their biggest financial and life decisions.

I have to say the period of time from 2009 to 2021 was a pretty smooth “ride” with very few hiccups along the way. Then COVID came along and showed us once again how brutal the markets can be. However, the rebound we have all seen since the March lows of 2020 has been a nice surprise not many of us were expecting to happen so quickly. Most investors have their accounts back to or above where they were pre-Covid and provides a great opportunity to revisit the plan going forward.

Looking forward I do not know where the markets will go but I am confident there are many surprises in store. I am looking forward to putting my own small fingerprint on our industry and launching Evergreen Retirement Planning is part of that mission. During my career I have worked with thousands of clients, and I have learned that as investors, more often than not, we are our own worst enemy. The 24-hour news cycle is probably a close 2nd place worst enemy to our investing goals. I hope to help clients be the best investors they can be, eliminate as much of the “noise” as possible, and help make the retirement transition as fun as it should be.

Many investment firms claim to make your retirement a reality. I look at it differently, realizing it’s all your hard work and sacrifice that got you to this point and our role is to help you plan it and get the most out of it.

From our unique fee structure to our index funds “passive investing” approach, each facet of Evergreen was developed and founded with intention. We also provide socially responsible investing versions of all our model portfolios. Evergreen is a values-based firm that from the start, will be giving 5% of profits annually to local Massachusetts 501(c)(3) organizations.

 

-Nick