It’s a scary feeling. You’ve planned carefully, saved appropriately, invested thoughtfully and are on track to retire. Then you are met with a significant and unexpected financial challenge. How do you stay on track?
Many families rely on the crucial years before retirement, a time when peak earnings can be socked away to fund retirement and eliminate any remaining debt. What happens when a major life event of financial hardship interrupts your plans? Where do you turn when you need trusted advice? There is a valuable resource available to Southwest Michigan friends and neighbors who experience an unexpected major financial challenge. It is personified by the professional wealth management team at Baird, 2900 State Street, St. Joseph.
Baird Private Wealth Management is a team specifically engineered and built to deal with changing financial conditions, whether opportunities or challenges. Four professional financial advisors and two client specialists with over 100 years of combined experience, stand ready to analyze and strategize the most appropriate financial plan for your family, whatever the circumstances.
Baird advisors Mike Wyble and Dan Norton sat down with MoodyOnTheMarket.com to explain how they might work with a family navigating the surprises that life so often brings.
“Fundamentally, we help you get back on track,” said Dan Norton.
Mike Wyble explained, “We help you ask—and answer—the tough questions. ‘Can I retire now?’ ‘Do I need to work another seven years?’ ‘Are my children’s college plans in jeopardy?’ ‘Am I going to be, okay?’
Wyble said there are five unexpected threats that often upset a well-planned retirement. Job loss, death of a spouse, getting a divorce, investing too conservatively or being too generous can alter your retirement, but they can be made easier by having the framework of a financial plan in place.
The Sanders, McKee, Wyble, Norton Group are professionals at Baird and are prepared to deal with these changed financial conditions. When you sit down with the team at St Joseph Baird you don’t just have one advisor, you truly have the experience and expertise of them all.
- Rick Sanders is a Senior Vice President & financial advisor with 33 years of experience and specialized training in high-net-worth clients.
- Alan McKee is also a Senior Vice President and financial advisor with 36 years of experience. He completed specialized training to help high-net-worth clients navigate accumulations, preservation, and distribution of their wealth.
- Mike Wyble is the Associate Branch Manager with over 16 years of wealth management experience and specialized licenses in Life Insurance, Health Insurance and Long-Term Care.
- Dan Norton is a financial advisor with over 12 years of experience. Dan focuses on being Baird’s ‘in-house” financial planner.
- Kathy Trainor, client specialist, has 36 years of experience in the wealth management business. Kathy is known for her ability to simplify and work through complicated client transactions.
- Alison Frederick is a Baird client specialist with a background in retirement plan administration.
Baird local advisors pride themselves in working with and understanding the complexities of family wealth. Mike Wyble explained:
“We are interested in building relationships that span not just a lifetime, but generations. We regularly work with multiple generations in a family to assure they have the right options to consider for the family’s long-term well-being.”
Dan Norton told us one of the biggest and most serious mistakes many families make is waiting too long to begin serious financial planning for their future—and retirement. That’s why he’s so enthusiastic about working with couples or singles in their 30’s. They have time to grow significant assets over time. Dan pointed to the real financial ‘secret weapon’ available to younger investors: compound interest—earning money on your money over several decades. It makes millionaires!
Combining that with solid advice from the Baird team, helping families make educated, non-emotional decisions about their finances over time builds the confidence that allows Baird clients to face tough, unexpected challenges. As Wyble sees it, there’s so much more to a financial advisor relationship than selecting or trading stocks & bonds. “We truly know our clients and their goals. We work together to lay out a plan and create a work optional lifestyle for the clients we serve.”
To the local families affected by recent corporate cutbacks, the Baird team says there is no better time to make your financial plan, if you haven’t already done it in the past. They will help you assess your strengths and resources and make a plan that helps insulate you from financial ‘bumps in the road’ in the future.
If retirement perhaps is in sight, they will help you realistically analyze when that option is appropriate. If starting a business or some other new financial enterprise is a consideration, they will help you systematically consider the risks and potential rewards on the horizon.
The Baird Team will seek to build a relationship with you and your family that endures over time and rewards both parties for the key role they play in making it successful. For more than 100 years, Baird has been a leading national financial advisory firm. Two fundamental principles serve as its guideposts: Integrity is Irreplaceable and Clients Come First.
On that platform Baird professionally manages over $400 Billion in client assets. Locally, the Baird Team prides itself on leadership and community involvement. The advisor team volunteers on many fronts with non-profit organizations that make Southwest Michigan a better place. They are committed to the long Baird tradition of ‘Giving Back.’ They are most proud of their Baird Charity Golf Event, now four years old and planned for June 17th at Orchard Hills Country Club near Buchanan.
This year’s golf event is expected to raise more than $20,000 and will benefit three outstanding local organizations: The Therapeutic Equestrian Center, Lory’s Place, and the Berrien Community Foundation.
Baird has again been named one of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® ranking No. 34 on the 2024 list. This is the 21st consecutive year the employee-owned, international wealth management, asset management, investment banking/capital markets and private equity firm has been honored on the list.
Learn more about Baird’s St. Joseph Private Wealth Management Team
The Sanders McKee Wyble Norton Group
www.stjoseph.bairdwealth.com 269.983.7500
