Julie A. Back

We are a registered investment adviser that provides wealth management, investment advisory and financial consulting services to individuals, families, businesses, non-profit organizations and foundations. Our role is to listen, inform and advise. We take a well-rounded, relationship-driven approach to helping our clients develop customized solutions that address a full range of financial issues. Both the financial plan and investment strategy of a client are focused on their personal objectives and risk tolerance.

We begin each relationship with a thorough review of the client’s objectives, priorities, and preferences to identify relevant information about a client’s assets, goals (e.g., retirement, cash needs, finance college education for children), investment time horizon, risk tolerance, investment restrictions, and investment experience. This information is typically gathered via meetings and written questionnaires and will ultimately inform the construction of a tailored financial plan for the client. This comprehensive plan is regularly updated to address important life transitions and serve as the client’s roadmap for long-term financial success. Once we understand the client's plans and objectives, the client and advisor agree on a long-term “investment objective” which sets expectations around risk and potential return and allows for a disciplined investment process. We have a dedicated, centralized investment team and committee which designs the portfolios associated with each investment objective and sets guidelines around best practices such as portfolio rebalancing and tax-loss harvesting. Individual client portfolios are then monitored by client teams on an ongoing basis.

Client portfolios consist primarily, but not exclusively, of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and other investments reviewed by our investment research team and consistent with the policy. If appropriate for the client's financial situation, we will also use Separately Managed Accounts for individual corporate, government, and municipal bonds, stocks, variable annuities and other securities as deemed appropriate for the client's account, as we do not restrict our advice to limited types of products or investments. While providing investment management services, we manage accounts on a discretionary basis whereby we will decide to buy and sell investments in the client’s account in the amounts and at the times we believe are in the best interest of the client to do so. In select situations, we also offer nondiscretionary investment management services where we will provide advice, but you will decide which investments to buy and sell for your account.

While we do not impose a minimum requirement to open or maintain an account or establish a relationship, we do recommend different service offerings depending upon a client's investable assets.