40 Years!

Well, 5 years has passed since my last ‘article’. So hard to believe it was 40 years ago today that I started in this exciting, frustrating, fulfilling, ever changing retirement plan industry. As I have reminded folks numerous times, we start young down south!

It is an understatement to say that there been a lot of change over the past five years in the world, ?in the retirement industry and also for me personally. COVID impacted so many families directly and likely forevermore impacted how we go about our daily lives. From an industry perspective, the Secure Acts have brought many positive changes. We continue to do more and more to help Americans successfully save for retirement. On the personal front, grandkids have been the greatest joy over the last 5 plus years!! Hard to remember life before they came into our lives! My work life has certainly changed as well. The first 38 years was a blend of great times, great friends and great service to our customers along with some bumps and frustrations along the way. I made so many great friends as part of the family owned company (First Mercantile Trust) for the first 16 years and then as part of National Bank of Commerce/Central Carolina Bank (NCF), SunTrust (which is now Truist), MassMutual and EdgeCo Holdings. What I have found is that most people in this business truly care about satisfying the needs of our most important customers, the millions of American workers out there. Although I fully intended on finishing my career where I started it…through those multiple different owners…that was not meant to be. Strategic and understandable decisions at EdgeCo on asset utilization led to my first foray into the job market in over 38 years. I was contemplating calling it a day and just riding off into the sunset, but some old friends encouraged me to join them at Transamerica. While I think I could have gotten used to retirement, I am glad they gave me a call and kept me active in this business. What I have found is another great group of folks that care about what we do and how we do it. Do we get everything right 100% of the time…of course not. However, it is not for lack of desire and effort. We have high quality products and services that we can be proud of and I have certainly enjoyed my time here.

I don’t think it will be another 5 years before my next article as I do expect to retire before then. So at that time I will type up my last 'article' while sitting on the porch with my wife, watching our cows graze and reflecting on all the wonderful blessings in my life!