M E E T T R E V O R
Everything I believe about money started long before I had any.
◆ W H E R E I T S T A R T E D
I grew up on a small 40-acre horse farm just north of Milwaukee, in Wisconsin where money was tight and everything got fixed by hand. We did the work ourselves because there wasn't another option. A trip to McDonald's was a treat. That kind of childhood teaches you two things: how to work, and how it feels when money is a source of worry instead of freedom.
At ten, I started working on the neighbor's dairy farm. One Sunday around then, I was pestering my stepdad to play a game with me. He pulled out the newspaper, opened it to the finance section, and said we could play his game. We looked up his stocks, week after week. Within a year I had opened a brokerage account and bought my first stock with farm money.
I've been investing ever since. Thirty years and counting.
◆ T H E C L I M B
I was the first in my family to go to college, and I paid my own way through UW-Platteville. I started in engineering physics. I switched to sales and marketing when I realized I wanted to work with people, not just problems. As it turns out, I ended up doing both.
I graduated into the 2008 economy, so my first job was on a factory assembly line, building industrial pumps. I worked sixty and seventy hour weeks. When a third of the workforce was laid off, I wasn't. Three years in, the company promoted me to project engineer, a role where everyone else had an engineering degree. I knew the products better than the books did.
In 2013 someone told me I'd make a good financial advisor. He was right about the fit, and the timing changed my life. I've spent the years since advising families and business owners at national firms, managing planning and investments through every kind of market, before building Ascendant.
◆ W H Y A S C E N D A N T E X I S T S
Early in my career I saw how much of this industry runs on selling products and hitting quotas. It never sat right with me. I did what was best for my clients anyway, and it cost me money at the time. I'd make the same choice again.
I know what it feels like to worry about money. I also know what it takes to move from scarcity to abundance, because I've made that walk myself. Helping people make it is the best part of this work.
◆ L I F E N O W
Today I live what I advise. I'm a business owner running multi-location operations, a real estate investor across residential and commercial properties, a dad to a young daughter, and engaged to Courtney. When I talk with a business owner about payroll stress, or with parents about saving for their kids, it isn't theory. It's my Tuesday.
Now you know my story.
I’d love to hear yours.