I took a few paths in life to get me to where I am, but the seeds were there from very early on.

As a lover of strategy from a young age, it lead me to traditional games like Monopoly, Risk, and Role-Playing Games. Normally the included rules came up short for me in some areas so I’d add my own house rules to build in the complexity I wanted so I could watch the progression from start to finish and have the payoff of something beautiful at the end. I’d often play Risk and Monopoly by myself with 3 or 4 players setup to see how the game would develop over time and try to play different strategies against each other.

I discovered orchids in my early high school days and fell in love with the nearly infinite variety they have and the amazing strategies they use to attract their pollinators. The nurturer in me latched on and after spending some time to understand what they needed to be happy my bedroom impersonated a greenhouse. My tiny bed was stuffed against the wall and the middle of the room was dominated by a 2 layer black metal shelving system with a high-intensity metal halide light on top and two banks of fluorescent lights on the bottom with nearly 50 orchids in there.  My favorite genus of orchids is Masdevallias, which I killed a lot of in my youth, and am finally finding success with now that I’ve found the right varieties that match what I can offer and I understand them more. In my teenage years, I’d often have 3 or 4 plants blooming at any given time and after hooking my mom on them as well we’d have another rack in the dining room for her plants.

As a saver from my early days, I naturally gravitated to investing in stocks once I got to college and as that happened in 2000 there were just enough resources online for me to think I knew what I was doing, but not so much that I could teach myself how to do it very successfully.  I grew frustrated with trying to understand the markets and after some early losses I swore it off for a few years.  

I graduated from the University of Washington in 2000 with a bachelors degree in biology, although I didn’t use my degree professionally. 

I came back to stocks during the Great Recession, as I decided if I could learn how to invest properly during this time period that would give me great armor going forward when the next recession comes.  As my day job had frequent periods of idleness I decided to fill those hours learning about investing. I’d often spend 10 hours a week watching CNBC, reading books on the subject, and reading the quarterly conference call transcripts of companies I wanted to invest in.  Although the first couple years could generously be described as learning opportunities, I did see enough to fall in love with investing. I continued to add to my savings and my process picking winners was refined. Soon I was following companies and earnings reports the way other people follow the Mariners or Seahawks.  

One day my stepfather asked me to help look at his 401k selections and I knew looking at what he had that changes needed to be made and I knew what it was supposed to look like for someone his age. Although it was intimidating for a moment to be making selections with thousands of dollars of someone else’s money I knew I was right. Over the coming years, I would make a few adjustments to his account based on market conditions each year and he was much happier with how it performed. I spread out from family and started helping friends and other co-workers. Soon it became a personal mission to give everyone the help they needed to manage their accounts and by then the seed had started to sprout for my new future.

I began online classwork on how to become a financial advisor. I studied coursework for Certified Financial Planners, although I can’t count myself as a member until I’ve been practicing for a number of years.

I passed my Series 65 exam on my first try in April 2017 with a score of 83% when I needed 70% to pass.  That gave me the minimum qualifications I needed to open my own practice in WA state, or go work for a brokerage as an advisor.  As I have rather strong beliefs about how people should be treated and the right way to build for stable futures I felt building a solo practice from the start was the best way to go. 

My practice took root and has been open since fall 2017.  My great ambition is to never have to retire and close my doors.  As long as my mind stays sharp and my body can keep up I can’t think of any way I would rather spend my time than making money for myself and my friends.  My family has a good history of living well into their 80s so if the fates smile on me I can serve others for a long time. 

If you would like to know where I got the name Masdevallia from you can follow the link here for the story behind that.