Default: Veteran Entrepreneurs / Business Owners

Andrea Clark, CFP®, AFC®
Specializations:Real Estate Investing, Military Transition to Tech, & Women 50+

Post date August 8, 2024

Hi, I’m Andie – founder of The Table Financial Planning. I am a wife, mom, grandma, small business owner, (accidental) landlord, runner, homeschooler, and family CEO through a dozen military moves.

Coffee is my BFF.

You think I’m joking.

No one joins the military to get rich, but military life affords us many ways to live richly. Add to that the constant transition of military life, and you see the need for your money to have a plan to follow. I want you to make well-informed financial decisions. My experience from being a military spouse and military financial educator will help you incorporate the unique military pays and benefits that are part of your life into that decision-making process. The end goal is managing and growing your assets in a way that lets you sleep at night. You and your family have earned it.

When I married into the Air Force nearly three decades ago, a newly-minted engineering degree in hand, I quickly found that being a practicing engineer and military spouse was going to be tough. Telecommuting and virtual positions didn’t exist, and most employers were not keen on hiring a military vagabond.

I started teaching night school math classes at every new duty station and learned that adult students of all ages paid best attention when the numbers were connected to their money. While raising and homeschooling four kids through too many deployments and PCS moves to count, I was chosen to be a 2009 FINRA Foundation Military Spouse Fellow. Soon I was an Accredited Financial Counselor® working with military members and their spouses as a personal financial counselor through a DoD contract. About the time my husband was retiring from the military, I was awarded a scholarship by The American College Center for Veterans Affairs to pursue the CFP® designation.

I founded The Table to continue educating and advising military families on their financial life journey. Today I work virtually with active duty and retired military families all over the country. I’d love for you to join me.

Schedule a Free Consultation

Andrea Clark, CFP®, AFC®
The Table Financial Planning, LLC
Fountain Hills, AZ 85268
618-363-4050
www.thetablefinancialplanning.com

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Katie Cannon, CFP®
Specializations:Junior Leaders, Group Financial Planning, & Federal Government Employees

Post date August 8, 2024

Hi, I’m Katie, founder of Money Pilot Financial Advisor. Growing up money was tight, but my family was always open about it. I learned to dream, prioritize, save, and spend on the things we valued most in life. I remember we all wanted to go on a vacation to Florida. Mom said my brothers and I would need to raise the gas money for us to afford the trip. Over the next year we skipped dessert at school lunches, worked odd jobs, and stashed away birthday money. We did it! The day we left, Mom gave me all the trip money and put me in charge of spending. On the two-day drive down, I quickly learned skills to help my family make money decisions despite competing goals and personalities. And I loved it.

After I finished ROTC and joined the Army, these skills helped me cope and succeed through all the worldwide moves, deployments, career and life decisions that go with the military. I served for 25 years as a troop leader, Black Hawk helicopter pilot, and China Foreign Area Officer. After retiring, I really missed serving and caring for soldiers and their families. So, I used my GI Bill to go back to school for a master’s degree in Finance and become a Certified Financial Planner candidate.

Today I’m passionate about working with servicemembers and their families to help them take charge of their money and make confident life decisions. Together we explore what’s important to you, where you want to go in life, the challenges, and what your options are. Then with you in the pilot seat, we build a plan to help you live your best life. Then as life changes or throws you a curve, I’m right there with you to adjust and adapt. Reach out and let’s do this – together.

Schedule a Free Consultation

Katie Cannon, CFP®
Money Pilot Advisor, LLC
Radiant, VA 22732
540-407-4064
www.moneypilotadvisor.com

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Sam Lewis, CFP®
Specializations: Guard & Reserve Members, Dual Status FERS Employees, Young Families

Post date August 8, 2024

Greetings, I’m Sam, the founder of SJL Financial. Although I’ve spent my entire life in Delaware, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to explore the world through my travels. My journey began when I joined the military during high school, and today, almost 25 years later, I still proudly serve. Over the years, I’ve held diverse roles ranging from farmhand, drafter, and land surveyor to personal trainer, air cargo craftsman, recruiter, and senior enlisted leader. However, my true passion lies in financial planning.

Money management wasn’t always my strong suit, but meeting the love of my life inspired me to do better. The spark was ignited when, during a family trip to Disney World in 2013, I came across a copy of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine at an airport gift shop. This eye-opening experience made me realize how much I didn’t know about the financial considerations that would shape our future.
Determined to learn and grow, I immersed myself in every available resource. In 2018, I was honored to receive a full Veteran’s Scholarship to the American College of Financial Services through the Penn Mutual Center for Veterans Affairs. The rigorous coursework for the Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) curriculum followed, culminating in earning both the ChFC and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designations in 2022.

During my exploration of financial planning concepts, I recognized a gap in the industry’s ability to meet the unique needs of military families. I wanted to become a resource that could leverage the specific pay and benefits of military service to overcome obstacles and achieve goals.

Today, my mission is to serve you. I am committed to helping you understand your financial situation, setting clear goals for your future, and providing a well-marked path to success. Money is not only about numbers but also about emotions. It drives our dreams and supports our lifestyles, yet it can also create worries that keep us awake at night.
A financial plan is more than just investments, insurance, or products. It should be a collaborative effort, taking into account your partner and important relationships in your life. It encourages important but sometimes difficult conversations, being honest about the limits of your resources while remaining reasonable about assumptions regarding the unknown. It blends mathematical concepts with behavioral challenges, fostering accountability, confidence, and hope.

Currently, only 33% of people have a written financial plan, according to Schwab. I’m determined to change that statistic, as I believe everyone deserves a financial plan. Even if you’re on a path without a plan right now, having a written financial plan can make that path intentional.
When you’re ready to put your path on a plan, I’m here to help! My enthusiasm lies in transforming people’s lives through personalized financial planning. Let’s assess where you stand and discuss the life you aspire to build—because together, we can plan for that!

Schedule a Free Consultation

Sam Lewis, CFP®, ChFC®

SJL Financial, LLC
Wilmington, DE 19803
302-827-7526
www.wecanplanforthat.com

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Erik Baskin, CFP®
Specializations: Military Transition, Dual Military Couples, Small Business Owners

Post date August 8, 2024

Hi, I’m Erik, Founder of Baskin Financial Planning, a fee-only financial planning firm located in Colorado Springs, Colorado focused on serving military families and business owners. In 2018, after graduating the U.S. Air Force Academy with an Economics degree, I began my professional career as a hospital administrator in the Air Force. As I was sitting in my apartment in Cheyenne, Wyoming after work every day, I quickly realized that this wasn’t going to be a career for me. It was a great first job, but wasn’t ultimately my calling and didn’t get me up out of bed every morning. I was captain of a Division I hockey team in college, and I still have that competitive drive that I need to harness into something. I knew that I needed to start a business, I just didn’t know what yet.

For the next 9 months, I binged business and entrepreneurship books and researched business ideas. I had a One Note with about 20 different ideas. I was teaching myself to code computer software, trade foreign exchange, and anything else that I could get my hands on.

One book in particular called the $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau said that you should find something that people naturally come to you for, something that you are passionate about, and something that people will pay for. This was my lightbulb moment. For me, that thing has always been investing and personal finance. I was always interested in the stock market, and many times found myself in conversations giving people finance pointers. I had also seen what the typical financial advisor did for family and friends, and was very frustrated with the lack of transparency, and lack of value for the fees that are paid.

From there on out, I was dead set on building a fee-only financial planning firm to help families align their money with their values. I began building the groundwork for Baskin Financial Planning in early 2019 while getting my MBA, studying for and passing the CFP exam, then finally launching the business in 2021 all while serving on active duty.

When I’m not busy nerding out with clients on financial planning and investing, I keep busy by spending time with my wife Shelley and my two Greyhound Annie, coaching hockey, working out, playing golf, hunting, going to country concerts, or reading a book outside on my favorite subject…personal finance.

Schedule a Free Consultation

Erik Baskin, CFP®
Baskin Financial Planning, LLC
Colorado Springs, CO 80921
719-203-1463
www.baskinfp.com

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Dan Huffman
Specializations: Real Estate Investing, FIRE, Veteran Entrepeneurs

Post date August 8, 2024

Hello! I’m Dan, and I founded Cornerstone Financial Planning, LLC to help people live out their ideal life today through strategic financial planning and real estate investing. Life is too short to live with tension between our time, money, and values. The more clarity I’ve gotten on my values, the more I realized that I needed to redesign my life. I strive to live intentionally and focused on these most important areas in my life, which are my faith, my family, and making the biggest impact that I can in the world around me. My mission is to help you discover your ideal life, and then to create and carry out your personalized financial plan to make it happen!
Ideal Clients

My primary areas of expertise and that I enjoy working in the most are early retirement planning (in-line with the Financial Independence Retire Early – FIRE – community) and real estate investing. I add the most value to young(ish!) people in their 20s-50s who are looking to build wealth and replace their active income with rental income, freeing them up to take command of their time, energy, and life. However, I’ve also gotten a lot of fulfillment helping some Clients who were a little late to begin accelerating their retirement investments in preparation of a more traditional retirement timeline.

Financial Planning & Coaching for Real Estate Investors (and beginners!)
I incorporate real estate investment coaching into my ongoing financial planning process for those clients who want to pursue time and financial freedom through real estate investing but aren’t sure where to start, are afraid of making expensive mistakes, or who recognize that they simply don’t know what they don’t know about beginning to invest in real estate. My aim is to be that coach that actually knows you, your life goals, and your financial situation and has a fiduciary responsibility to you rather than some random person on the internet selling you and everyone else they can get to click their link a course with nothing but videos without any one-on-one coaching that’s in-line with your financial plan. My ongoing Clients who are real estate investors receive significant access to me for financial planning and real estate coaching so that they can make investment decisions in a timely manner with the utmost confidence. This is what I wish I had when I was starting out! The only problem with me back then? I was too cheap to pay for it and I couldn’t find anything as robust as what I wanted. But since then, I’ve come to learn the truth of Robert Kiyosaki’s quote “Experience is expensive, education is cheap”. And of course, my coaching includes the financial analyses and strategic tax planning that general coaching programs don’t include, because they can’t!

Financial Planning for FIRE
While real estate investing is a passion and one of the greatest ways that I’ve found to make an impact that extends beyond my immediately community, I’m also passionate about the FIRE community and financial education. For those of you interested in more of a beginner-level financial plan for early retirement, I offer those as one-time plans or as ongoing engagements to help plan out your desired retirement, or recreational employment as I prefer to call it! I really enjoy planning out for different phases of life and helping you envision what each might look like and how we can tax plan around those times when you may have less active income.

About Dan

My wife, son, and I live in Colorado Springs, CO. I began my professional career as an athletic trainer out of college, working at a couple different DI universities. After getting burned out, I switched to physical therapy and was accepted into the Army-Baylor Doctor of Physical Therapy (PT) Program, which was the #5 ranked program in the USA at the time. So, in 2010, I direct commissioned, and I never looked back. I spent 11 years on active duty serving as a PT and deploying twice to Afghanistan. Our last duty station was at Landstuhl, Germany, and we absolutely loved it with all the Christmas markets and how easily we could travel! We have been to 37 countries and counting! But while I loved my time serving our nation’s servicemembers, over time I became more passionate about teaching them personal finance education rather than cracking backs and stabbing people with needles (the official term is “dry needling”) and I also had a couple of key experiences that weren’t so good where I didn’t feel that the military had my best interest in mind. So, in 2021, I ETS’d and switched to the Reserve component where I plan on completing my Army career and to take a sabbatical from working full time to go through the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) educational program, which I completed and passed the exam in July 2022 before finally launching my firm in early 2023. I’m now grateful to be part of a group of advisors such as MFAA and I look forward to serving you if I’m the best fit! If not, I’ll gladly refer you to someone that I think may be better for your situation.

Schedule a Free Consultation

Dan Huffman
Cornerstone Financial Planning, LLC
Colorado Springs, CO 80924
719-286-0403
www.cornerstonefiplanning.com