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Living Large with Less
In Good Company
PLUS Ready for Rising Rates? A Culinary Collaboration From Success to Significance America the Beautiful
FALL 2017
At CAPTRUST, we believe we have a profound responsibility to share our success with those less fortunate than us. One way we do that is through the activities of the CAPCommunity Foundation, our in-house, employee-run charitable foundation. Its mission is to enrich the lives of children in communities we serve. The foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) charity, was formally organized in 2007 to provide our employees with opportunities to participate as a group in community outreach efforts and to offer their time, passion, and financial support as a way to give back. Getty Images
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give. �
Winston Churchill
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www.capcommunityfoundation.org | toll free: 855.649.0943 4208 Six Forks Road, Suite 1700 | Raleigh, NC 27609
Volume 3, Issue 3 | Fall 2017
One of our goals with VESTED is to inform and inspire what comes next for our readers. Whether they call it their next chapter, second act, or retirement, we offer our thoughts and ideas to help light the way, often through the stories of others who have already successfully made the transition. The hope is that their learnings and experiences can make it easier for the rest of us. The cover of our fall 2017 issue features Tom Keesling, Rajesh Rao, and Dr. Lin Church, three entrepreneurs who are changing the way medical care is delivered. The trio enjoyed successful careers in technology, health care, and medicine, respectively. In their shared second act, they have created IndUShealth, a leading provider of corporate medical travel administration services, including the choice of traveling abroad for certain medical treatments. This issue’s columns and features touch on a range of topics, including: • Exploring the national parks as a way to stay active and engaged; • How a Raleigh-based chef exercises his creativity with seasonal ingredients; • Tips on how to launch financially savvy children into the world; • Collecting experiences rather than possessions to build a fulfilled life; and • Alternatives to the traditional model of life in retirement.
PUBLISHER J. Fielding Miller Chief Executive Officer
EDITORS John Curry Editor in Chief
Jennifer Liebel Managing Editor
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD
In particular, I would suggest you read “From Success to Significance” by Nanci Hellmich. Nanci describes how the ideas outlined by author Bob Buford in his book Halftime have helped many people find deeper meaning and purpose in their lives. I can personally attest to the power of Buford’s ideas and process. In his first installment of Investment Strategy, Chief Investment Officer Kevin Barry explores the potential impact of rising interest rates on household finances—from mortgages to savings and investments.
Jeremy Altfeder Financial Advisor
Land Hite Senior Vice President, Financial Advisor
Lauren Bartholomew Senior Client Management Consultant
Greg Middleton Director, Advisor Group
Rush Benton Senior Director, Strategic Wealth
Aaron J. Morris Vice President, Financial Advisor
Hugh (Trae) Cole Financial Advisor
Mark Paccione Director, Investment Research
Ellen Crowley Vice President, Financial Advisor
Teri Parker Vice President, Financial Advisor
Nick DeCenso Manager, Wealth Strategy
Alysia Tacinelli Client Management Specialist
Karen Denise Senior Manager, Wealth Operations
Kyle Tucker Vice President, Financial Advisor
Mike Gray Senior Vice President, Financial Advisor
Tiffany Walker Senior Wealth Planner
ART DIRECTION & MARKETING
As always, we appreciate your article ideas, thoughts, and suggestions. Please keep them coming!
Lonzetta Allen Associate Art Director
All the best,
Harrison Brackett Jennifer Mastrapasqua Graphic Designer Distribution Manager John Curry Art Director
Jennifer Liebel Production Manager
Colby Warren Graphic Designer
WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF
J. FIELDING MILLER CAPTRUST Chief Executive Officer
Azul Photography Raleigh, NC
Classic Graphics Morrisville, NC
Getty Images Seattle, WA
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kevin barry Kevin Barry is CAPTRUST’s chief investment officer and leads the Consulting Research Group, the team responsible for investment manager due diligence, asset allocation, and discretionary investment management for the firm’s wealth management and institutional advisory clients. Barry studied finance at La Salle University in Philadelphia and the University of London, where he received a Master of Science degree in financial management.
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kathleen burns kingsbury Kathleen Burns Kingsbury is a wealth psychology expert, international speaker, author, and host of the Breaking Money Silence™ podcast. Her fifth book, Breaking Money Silence: Shatter Money Taboos, Talk Openly About Finances, and Live a Richer Life, was published in September. For more information, visit www.breakingmoneysilence.com.
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jennifer brookland Jennifer Brookland served as an officer in the Air Force before reporting as a national fellow with News21 and with the United Nations humanitarian news and analysis service. She spent three years producing content for international development organizations in Washington. In 2015, she began freelance writing and editing for Duke, Our State, and Chapel Hill magazines. Brookland currently produces a daily talk show on public radio station WUNC.
Features 4
LIVING LARGE WITH LESS
Columns 14
PASSION PURSUITS
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MONEY TALKS
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GLEANINGS
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LASTING LEGACY
NOT-SO-TRADITIONAL RETIREMENT
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EXPERT ANGLE
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CLIENT CONVERSATIONS
READY FOR RISING RATES?
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MARKET REWIND
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CAPTRUST HAPPENINGS
by Sylvana Smith
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IN GOOD COMPANY by Jennifer Brookland
Planning Successful Transitions by Kim Painter
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America the Beautiful by Nanci Hellmich
National Park Facts
A Culinary Collaboration by Sylvana Smith
Setting Limits with the Boomerang Generation by Kathleen Burns Kingsbury
From Success to Significance by Nanci Hellmich
by Kevin Barry
nanci hellmich
kim painter
sylvana smith
Nanci Hellmich, an award-winning multimedia reporter, covered personal finance, retirement, nutrition, health, and other topics for USA TODAY for more than 30 years. She now enjoys writing for AARP, Encore.org, and other companies and organizations. She has been named one of the top 10 national online influencers on weight loss and nutrition. Hellmich has appeared on both local and national television shows, including NBC’s TODAY Show.
Kim Painter is a freelance writer specializing in health and lifestyle issues. She was a USA TODAY staffer for many years and has continued to contribute to the newspaper as a reporter, columnist, and blogger. She lives in McLean, Virginia, where she practices what she preaches: wearing sunscreen, eating broccoli, and getting at least 10,000 steps a day.
Sylvana Smith is a freelance writer living on an antebellum farm in central North Carolina. Educated in graphic design at Carnegie Mellon University and journalism at the University of North Carolina, she writes marketing communications for Fortune 100 companies. She has been a professional journalist and marketing communications writer for 21 years, producing books, brochures, executive speeches, and trade journal articles.
All publication rights reserved. None of the material in this publication may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of CAPTRUST: 919.870.6822. Š2017 CAPTRUST Financial Advisors. The opinions expressed in this report are subject to change without notice. This material has been prepared or is distributed solely for informational purposes and is not a solicitation or an offer to buy any security or instrument or to participate in any trading strategy. CAPTRUST does not render legal, accounting, or tax advice. If you require such advice, you should contact the appropriate legal, accounting, or tax advisor. The information and statistics in this report are from sources believed to be reliable but are not warranted by CAPTRUST Financial Advisors to be accurate or complete. Performance data depicts historical performance and is not meant to predict future results.
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L ESS L IVIN G LARGE W IT H
by Sylvana Smith
At 44 years old and only a few months away from completing his Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy, Scott Brockmeier had an epiphany. He didn’t want a career in academia. It was summer, and the mountains were calling. So he moved all his belongings into a storage unit, gave his cat to a trusted friend, and set out with his dog, Sierra, to live large and unburdened. They headed west, living at times out of Scott’s Subaru Outback, sometimes with friends or family, but
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always with only the bare essentials.
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Scott’s immediate goal was the Hardrock endurance run, a 100-mile circuit across Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, crossing 13 passes above the timberline. With a 48-hour cutoff, many runners see the sun set twice before finishing. It’s an unimaginable challenge for most mortals—a dissertation on the extremes of human potential. “Besides being rugged, these are some of the most beautiful mountains I’d ever seen either in person or in picture books,” said Scott. “I found this course inspiring like no other that I’d ever seen or heard of.” After enduring icy snow-melt stream crossings, climbs of 3,000 to 4,500 feet at a stretch, and an unexpected monsoon at 12,000 feet, Scott finished in 41 hours. A few nomadic years later, Scott hatched an audacious plan to break the known record for the number of sanctioned 100-mile runs completed in one calendar year—then 25. Scott and then girlfriend, Liz, planned to complete 30 of them, including epic runs such as Hardrock, Salt Flats, Zion in the Utah desert, and the Graveyard 100 on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. They would live out of a suitcase or a motorhome for a year.
difficult to get things done, enjoy peace and quiet, or spend time the way you want to. It adds to your stress, slows you down, and drains your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual strength. Clutter is disempowering.” So that stuff we bought isn’t making us deliriously content? “The paradox of possessions is that we assume that the happiness we get from buying something will last as long as the thing itself,” said Travis Bradberry, author of the best-selling Emotional Intelligence 2.0. “It seems intuitive that investing in something we can see, hear, and touch on a permanent basis delivers the best value. But it’s wrong.” Just ask Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a Cornell University psychology professor who has been studying the perennial question, “Can money buy happiness?” for more than two decades. Apparently the answer is yes—if you invest in experiences rather than things. Gilovich’s research shows three reasons why that is so. For one, we gain pleasure from anticipating a vacation or event, whereas waiting for delivery of a purchased object is more likely to cause frustration.
When Scott and Liz finished the Houston 100 on December 29, it People tend to underestimate the longmarked Scott’s 27th 100-miler for Second, the memory of past term value they’ll get out of a life the year. He had shattered the experiences brings greater pleasure record. Liz had done 36. “It was than the daily reminder of present experience—and often don’t ascribe it an exciting year,” Scott recalls. things, Gilovich found. When asked any monetary value at all—but ultimately “We pushed our bodies and our to self-report their happiness with minds to places that we’ve never that’s where authentic happiness is found. major material and experiential gone before and met so many investments, people showed similar wonderful and interesting levels of satisfaction with both types people. It was a year to remember, but definitely not one to repeat.” of purchases—at first. But over time, their satisfaction with the Certainly more memorable than a year pursuing tenure in a college things they purchased went down, while satisfaction with the lecture hall. experiences they had purchased went up. Things tarnish, break, or become mundane. Reminiscences have unending value. Since walking away from academia, Scott has lived his life on the premise that the epic adventures of our journey do not happen where Most profound is the social factor. Experiences become part of how our stuff lives. At home, surrounded by our possessions, we can find we define ourselves and how we bond with others. “We consume restoration, comfort, and community, but not the grand, defining experiences directly with other people,” says Gilovich. “And after moments and memories. they’re gone, they’re part of the stories that we tell one another.” In fact, our possessions can possess us, especially when they cross the line from necessary to clutter—as they invariably do. We spend our 20s acquiring the trappings of being grown-up, our 30s acquiring the paraphernalia of young professionals and new parents, and our 40s acquiring the fruits of our success. By the time we reach our 50s, we have likely lost one or both parents and realized that you really can’t take it with you. All that stuff means very little in the long run, and there’s too much of it. “Clutter saps your energy and erodes your spirit,” said Stephanie Roberts, author of Fast Feng Shui: 9 Simple Principles for Transforming Your Life by Energizing Your Home. “Clutter makes it
Two people who both hiked up Mt. Whitney or saw the same Rolling Stones concert will share a more authentic and meaningful connection than two people who have the same luxury car or television. Blogger Tarun Mittal put it succinctly: “Common interests are a great way to bond with people, while common possessions are almost irrelevant in the social sphere.” “Our experiences are a bigger part of ourselves than our material goods,” said Gilovich. “You can really like your material stuff. You can even think that part of your identity is connected to those things, but nonetheless they remain separate from you. In contrast, your experiences really are part of you. We are the sum total of our experiences.”
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In our culture of consumerism, shedding our affinity for stuff is easier said than done, says tech entrepreneur and writer Ilya Pozin. “Everywhere we look, we are inundated with the same message: ‘BUY, BUY, BUY your way to happiness!’ While buying a new gadget or the first drive in a new car may be satisfying or thrilling for a short while, the thrill always fades, and we find ourselves back in the same place seeking the next purchase to keep the feeling going.” We get caught up in the desire for more—particularly more money to buy more things. But that quest can get in the way of living a happy life. By having less in your life, you make room for more of what matters, such as people, moments, and memories.
The process was easy, Susan said, even joyful. She gave a stack of lumber to a young friend who helped with the clearing-out process. He was delighted, because it was enough wood to build a shed on the land he’d just bought. He is embarking on the building-up phase of life. What about heirlooms or other objects of sentimental value? “I gave away my grandmother’s wrought-iron standing lamp that I never liked and nobody in the family wanted,” Susan said. “It might have been worth a lot of money; I don’t know, but I gave it to my neighbor, and he was thrilled to have it. It has really pleased me to see people value things that I either can’t use or don’t want. People light up, and it’s so cool. I feel so light. There is no doubt in my mind about what I’m doing.”
The obvious conclusion: Go ahead and buy that coveted car or entertainment system, but realize that you’ll gain more enduring happiness from your investments in experiences such as travel, education, and cultural events.
With newfound freedom, Susan is resuming her painting, taking more yoga classes, developing her new dressage horse, Rhapsodie, and learning Spanish. The new home has the perfect painter’s studio—a sunny living area that opens onto a backyard with a koi pond and fig trees. A separate unit will bring in rental income. What if you don’t want to run 100-mile mountain trail races? Nearby Goose Creek State Park beckons for long walks in the Experiences don’t have to be palmettos. Her brother’s bass extreme, just fulfilling. Go to the boat is ready for outings on the We get caught up in the desire for more— theater. Hike in a state park. Take Pamlico River that runs through a liberal arts course. Create art. town. And that Research more things, more money. But that quest can Learn a trade or hobby. Plant a Triangle Park job can be done as actually get in the way of living a genuinely garden. Host a garden party. a telecommuter.
happy life. By having less in your life, you
That’s the path graphic designer In a curious twist, the seller of make room for more of what really matters, Susan Redmond took, partly by Susan’s new oasis is also design and partly by default. downsizing, leaving behind such as people, moments, and memories. Susan and her husband, Michael, anything that doesn’t fit into the built their dream farm in North travel trailer in the driveway. A Carolina in 1993, with 14 acres, a garden, nice house, and riding retired nurse, she and her parrots are embarking on a cross-country trip arena. When Michael was laid off from Nortel in a massive to visit friends and family. One quest to simplify life enables another. downsizing in 2003, the couple downsized their lives too. They carved seven acres from the front of the farm and put in a cozy “As you live phases of your life, there are always boundaries,” Susan modular home. The downsizing wasn’t voluntary, but it worked. said. “You have boundaries in a relationship. You have boundaries if you own a farm. You’re always dealing with the physicality of The garden party wasn’t voluntary either. It was a memorial farm life, and the needs and emotions of the animals you own. You gathering for Michael, who died at 62, a few days after bypass have definite boundaries with work.” And possessions impose their surgery. For the next two years, Susan held the smaller farm own boundaries. together, but the mowing and maintenance became a burden, weighed down by a 66-mile commute to a full-time job in Research “Now, I want to find out how far I am,” Susan said. “I want to find Triangle Park. The farm and everything that went with it had out what I can do. I want to find out how far Rhapsodie and I can go. become an impediment to living. I want to find out what I can do with painting. That’s all open-ended, a wide-open world. I’m ready for this phase of my life.” This summer, the farm went on the market on a Wednesday and sold by Saturday for more than asking price. Within days, Susan “We want to experience all that’s in life,” Susan said. “I wanted to found the perfect house in Washington, North Carolina, populaexperience having a child. I wanted to experience being married. I tion 9,800. Then began the process of trading possessions for wanted to experience living on a farm. I am grateful that I’ve had all freedom. The pressure washer, rotary tiller, generator, and a heap these things in my life. It doesn’t get any better than this. So, in a of Chapel Hill gravel went first, all given to friends and neighbors. way, that makes it okay to let it go.”
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We want to experience all that’s in life. I wanted to experience having a child. I wanted to experience being married. I wanted to experience living on a farm. I am grateful that I’ve had all these things in my life. It doesn’t
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get any better than this. So, in a way, that makes it okay to let it go.
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Susan Redmond
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IN
GOOD COMPANY by Jennifer Brookland
The word “skeptic” comes from Greek roots that mean inquiry and observation— not doubt. So Dr. Franklin “Lin” Church has no problem admitting he was skeptical when he first heard about a business plan to send Americans overseas for surgery.
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Actually, when Rajesh Rao sat at Church’s kitchen table over mugs of coffee and pitched the idea that would become IndUShealth, Church thought, “He’s a great guy, but he’s way out on a limb.” Church had spent three decades as a family doctor in Raleigh, North Carolina, and, even though he’d stopped practicing several years prior, his drive to help people had never gone away. People still called or emailed—even stopped him in the grocery store—every day to ask for his medical opinion. To him, that kind of respect and trust was a currency all its own. So before he traded any of that for a harebrained idea, Church needed Rao to convince him that the medicine was solid. In fact, Rao was still overcoming his own skepticism about the idea. But the challenge of tackling the immense healthcare burden borne by American employers called to him. It was, as he says, a tough nut to crack. And Rao had always been drawn to just that kind of task. A problem solver at heart, Rao had spent three decades working in the U.S. in positions ranging from an engineering job at IBM to C-suite roles in retail automation and e-learning software companies he helped found. “To me, the opportunity to evaluate a problem … and make customers really happy with a solution is just an exciting thing to be able to do,” he says. Rao loved that, in the U.S., even little companies have the ability to nimbly and creatively make change—even for big customers. But it was time for a personal change. “For me, what I recognized midcareer when I made the switch is that I could continue doing some of the same things and solving the problems I knew how to solve, or I could switch careers and do something completely different,” he said. The opportunity to crack that new, tough nut presented itself to Rao when Tom Keesling approached him through the Carolinas chapter of a global entrepreneurship group.
(Top) Rao, Keesling, and Church meet with doctors at an open forum session at client Ashley Furniture (Bottom) Dr. Jacobo Zafrani jokes with colleagues after the forum session
Keesling is a former hospital executive who had also worked in aviation and with technology start-ups. His experience in the American healthcare system left him feeling that he was contributing to an ever more broken system. It was a cognitive dissonance he eventually couldn’t ignore. 9
Could it really be possible for a software engineer and a hospital executive to change the way Americans accessed surgical care? He was skeptical, but he was in. “I got very good at making a lot of money for hospitals,” Keesling says. “And unfortunately, when all the hospitals get very good at making money, what happens is the prices begin to go up. You find out the impact that all this is having on individuals. It stuck in the back of my head.”
IndUShealth
Keesling thought the U.S. system was likely beyond meaningful reform. But he had another idea to give patients access to the expensive surgical treatments they needed. Why not offer them an option to travel to a country like India, where surgery was just as safe and effective but nowhere near as expensive? When Rao heard Keesling’s thoughts, he couldn’t help but think of the India he had grown up in—chaotic India that was poor, top-down, and unevolved technologically. “My eyes were shut to imagining that things had gotten any better since I had left,” Rao says. He was intrigued by Keesling’s healthcare background and interested in doing something different. “But he was suggesting something so out there and unique!” Rao says. “I was in disbelief at first.”
IndUShealth
Then again, Rao’s intellectual curiosity was piqued. Could it really be possible for a software engineer and a hospital executive to change the way Americans access surgical care? He was skeptical, but he was in. Now Keesling and Rao needed a physician who could smooth the way for a blessing from the medical community. So it wasn’t a great sign when Church took a sip of his coffee and said, “I don’t think this sounds doable.” Twelve years later, IndUShealth has agreements in place covering more than 170,000 people across more than 40 companies with over 100 worksites across the country. That first trip to India was enough to convince Church, who saw the gleaming, state-of-the art hospitals and internationally trained surgeons, reviewed the data on outcomes and
IndUShealth
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(Top) Hospital Clinica Biblica, Costa Rica (Middle) Hospital Clinica Biblica, Omega Tower, Costa Rica (Bottom) Hospital CIMA, Costa Rica
recovery times, and marveled at costs that were less than half of what the same procedures would cost at home. Patients from rural America, especially, get an opportunity to have top-notch surgery at high-volume centers, something not always guaranteed where they live and work, where competition between hospital systems is often minimal. “When I came back from India after that first visit, I had fear and trepidation that the medical profession was going to be really negative about what we were doing,” Church says. But at a presentation when he asked how many doctors in the room had patients who couldn’t afford the co-pays on their surgeries, every single one of them raised their hands. “Very few people can afford $5,000 for a knee replacement,” Church says. “I saw the opportunity to send people to India and get the same hardware at a fraction of the cost.”
indUShealth
These days, most patients travel to closer countries, like Costa Rica and the Cayman Islands, that have caught up in their expertise and technology. IndUShealth offers orthopedic procedures like hip and shoulder replacements and neurosurgical procedures, including cervical disc replacement, as well as hernia repairs and weight-loss surgeries. By sending their workers overseas, employers save thousands of dollars. “There’s so much talk about the need to keep jobs in the U.S., but so much of the export of jobs is connected to the high cost of health care for the workforce,” explains Rao. “So we are right there, helping to do more than just lip service to keep their jobs here. We are actually reducing the cost of care to where these jobs can really be saved. And that’s exciting to me.” And faced with an aging workforce whose output is declining as its healthcare costs escalate, Church is proud that IndUShealth’s “medical tourism” options take nonproductive people and make them productive again. People like Gary and Kay Harwell of Hickory, North Carolina, who have had a combined five surgeries in Costa Rica at no out-of-pocket cost thanks to the option offered by their former employer, manufacturer HSM Solutions, to use IndUShealth’s global healthcare option. Kay Harwell had lower back surgery and is doing wonderfully, according to her husband. For his part, 69-year-old Gary Harwell most recently had a knee replacement.
indUShealth
(Top) Dr. Jacobo Zafrani performing laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery at Hospital Clinica Biblica in San Jose, Costa Rica (Bottom) An operating room at Hospital CIMA in San Jose, Costa Rica
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There’s so much talk about the need to keep jobs in the U.S., but so much of the export of jobs is connected to the high cost of health care for the workforce. Rajesh Rao
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Each time they traveled to Costa Rica—patients may travel with a companion at no cost—the Harwells stayed in a resort bursting with orchids, violets, and other native flowers and vegetation.
“I went from a situation where I tried to share the misery as widely as possible,” says Keesling of his time trying to turn around rural hospitals’ economic woes. “And I just got back from the Ashley Furniture (an IndUShealth client) picnic where people lined up to say thank you. It’s a nice transition.”
IndUShealth and the caseworker assigned to Gary Harwell made all the plans and approved them through his insurer, provided passports and purchased plane tickets, made their reservations, and For Rao, Keesling, and Church, the scheduled doctor and hospital visits. IndUShealth even provided the thank-yous from grateful employees Harwells with calling cards to make like the Harwells is reason enough to sure they could stay in touch with family back in Hickory. “Everything was turnkey,” Harwell says. “I didn’t have to worry about a thing.”
keep pushing to find creative ways to change health care.
The medical care seemed more personal compared to what Harwell had experienced in American hospitals. In Costa Rica, “they looked after my needs and took care of me, and if I had any problems, I had a phone, and I could just call them up and say ‘Help me out,’ and they would be there in 30 minutes,” he remembers. “Surgery in the U.S. was less personal. Needs were met, but it was different.” That level of care and attention from IndUShealth made a world of difference to the Harwells, who had never traveled outside the U.S. before. “They were truly sincere about helping the patient,” Harwell says. “They’re just good folks, as us Southerners would say.” For Rao, Keesling, and Church, the thank-yous from grateful employees like the Harwells is reason enough to keep pushing to find creative ways to change health care.
Health City, Cayman Islands
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For his part, Rao is relishing the ability to keep problem solving. He had worried at the start about giving it all up. But now, he’s hooked on the fun of challenging himself and continuously learning more.
“It’s easy to become an expert if you immerse yourself and learn everything you can learn,” Rao says. Church says admiringly that his software engineering colleague has practically taught himself medicine; he brings Rao copies of the New England Journal of Medicine to peruse when the three get together each week in Raleigh. To Rao, IndUShealth’s success is “a good affirmation that we can be not only good at what we do, but be leaders. And we are,” he points out. The company is the exclusive provider of this service to large companies, and within two years of its founding, Rao was testifying before Congress about the approach. “In retrospect, it was the type of challenge I was looking for,” Rao says, even though at the start it was tough to come up against so many disbelievers.
“Including us!” says Church. For Church, running IndUShealth has been an infusion of youthfulness and joy. “It’s a joyful place to see patients and nurses happy,” he says. “And certainly joyful to relate to these two guys, because they’re both brilliant.” Church says getting up every morning to tackle the problem is keeping him engaged and feeling young. “I see a lot of my peers who have retired have gotten older,” Church says. “And I don’t think I have.” Instead, he loves to sail, golf, and spend time with his 13 grandchildren, and he has traveled enough to fill up three passport books. Though, as Keesling ribs him, “the last one’s mostly Disney.”
As the leading corporate medical travel administrator, IndUShealth offers employers with self-funded health plans a turnkey solution with a full range of administrative services and technical capabilities required to implement a successful medical travel program. Its Global Healthcare Option offers eligible candidates the choice of obtaining elective surgical procedures at multispecialty hospitals in destinations such as Costa Rica, Cayman Islands, and Cancun, with benefits such as waived deductibles, companion travel, and cash incentives.
7413 Six Forks Road #362 Raleigh, NC 27615 www.indushealth.com | 800.779.1314
The Cayman Reporter
He’s joking, and yet serious. “People’s definition of retirement has changed,” Keesling says. “It’s not flicking a switch and moving to Florida. If you’re lucky and blessed and have made good choices, you do have the opportunity to do something else … something that can really contribute back to people’s well-being.”
ABOUT THE COMPANY
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America the Beautiful by Nanci Hellmich
The national parks are national treasures, so it’s no wonder that some park enthusiasts are determined to explore as many of them as they can.
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That’s true for John and Betty Callender of Daniels, West Virginia, who have been to 20 of the country’s 59 national parks and have plans to see more. The couple’s passion for the parks began in 2011 with a trip to Glacier National Park in Montana, Yellowstone and Grand Teton in Wyoming, and Arches and Canyonlands in Utah. “That got us hooked. We loved Glacier so much,” says John, 69, a retired lobbyist. Avid kayakers and occasional hikers, they have rafted in Denali National Park in Alaska and kayaked in the Everglades in Florida, where it “was just us and a few alligators,” John says. “It was challenging but also so peaceful and serene.”
In 2016, the National Park Service set a record, with almost 331 million visits to the more than 400 sites overseen by the service. Next year, they may rent or buy a small recreational vehicle and drive down the West Coast, stopping at parks along the way, says Betty, 63, a retired nurse. Overall, touring the national parks is a pretty reasonably priced vacation, she says. She loves researching the local history, taking photos, and seeing the variety of wildlife including buffalo, elk, coyotes, wild horses, caribou, grizzly bears, and wild sheep. “I have yet to see a moose. My husband has to keep taking me to parks until I see a moose. I even have my grandkids laughing at that one.” The Callenders would like to explore all the parks, but they know they won’t make it to them all, including the National Park of American Samoa in the South Pacific, which is one of the 59.
A Wide Range of Natural Wonders Many people enjoy the country’s parkland. In 2016, the National Park Service set a record, with almost 331 million visits to the more than 400 sites overseen by the service, which include the national parks, monuments, battlefields, historic sites, seashores, and recreation areas.
Glacier National Park
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Motivations vary for people attempting to see as many national parks as possible, but the underlying fact is that the journeys give travelers joy, says travel writer Michael Joseph Oswald, 37, author of Your Guide to the National Parks. So far, he has explored 50 of the 59. “To me, the infinite range of beauty is one of the most appealing things about our national parks,” he says. 15
The vast majority of parks are easily accessed by motorists, but a few can only be reached by boat or plane. Some of the parks are remote, so park enthusiasts sometimes have to use a significant portion of their vacation time each year traveling to them. The amount of planning enthusiasts put into their trips varies. Some plan every detail; others wing it. Those who want to secure a campsite or room at the more popular parks during peak season—typically summer— need to book early, often when rooms and campsites first become available, Oswald says. On his last trip, he knew the route he wanted to take, but beyond that he kept things flexible. “A handful of times I was driving around after dark scrambling for a campsite. But overall it worked out great because it allowed me to work around a few wildfires and unexpected events.” Early on in his explorations, Oswald thought he’d be most impressed by the spectacular landscapes, but he found much more to appreciate. There’s a vast array of flora and fauna living within the boundaries that’s equally incredible. “Not in my wildest dreams did I think three of my favorite things would be trees—the redwoods and sequoias at their namesake parks in California and the bristlecone pines found at Great Basin in Nevada. They’re amazing. I wish they could tell their stories.”
“Like they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” he says, “but I feel strongly that there’s a little bit of beauty to be enjoyed for anyone who’s privileged enough to set foot in these exceptional parks.”
Road Trip of a Lifetime For some people, visiting the parks is more than exploring nature; it’s a journey of self-discovery. In May, Christine Rabaja, 45, a retired Marine living in Orlando, Florida, bought a used recreational vehicle and a truck Tara Catalino and mapped out her plan to go to the 47 national parks in the continental U.S. in 47 weeks. Her goal was to enjoy the experience while she decided her next career move. “I wanted to take a breath, reflect, and discover what it was I would enjoy doing the most.” She did the trip on a budget, living on her pension, and trying not to dip into her savings. That meant eating simple meals—trail mix, nuts, protein shakes, salads, fish, and vegetables—and occasionally splurging on some local cuisine. Some days she walked five to 10 miles in the parks, often stopping to enjoy a beautiful waterfall or serene lake. One time she sat near a babbling brook for hours, not realizing how much time had passed. “I was just listening and watching the water and staying present in the moment,” Rabaja says. “Water makes such a lovely sound, and watching it is very cathartic.” The entire experience has lowered her stress level and made her realize the wisdom of naturalist John Muir’s quote: “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
One Step at a Time Travelers often feel so enriched by their experiences that they wish they had started sooner. Over the past 10 years, Deb and Bruce Potts, both 63, have visited nine national parks as well as national battlefields, historical sites, and state and city parks in 27 states and Washington, D.C.
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The couple from Rochester, Michigan, has seen waterfalls, wildflowers, wildlife, and magnificent vistas. They watched a
Zion National Park
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mother grizzly bear and her cubs grazing in a field at Yellowstone. They caught a sunrise at Acadia National Park in Maine. They marveled at the beauty of the mountains in Grand Teton. Their adventure began in 2006, when the couple and her sister and brother-in-law decided to try to walk 10 miles at a beautiful place in all 50 states. At first, their motivation was to become more active to stave off dementia, but it’s grown into something bigger, leading them to learn more about themselves and each other. The best part of the experience is seeing “the amazing creation that God has given us and seeing the vast variety of geography and beauty of the parks,” says Deb, a motivational speaker and author of Making Peace with Prickly People. “When you are out in the wilderness, you feel like you have it all to yourself.” Bruce, the chief executive officer of a robotics company, agrees. “The views, nature, and being in God’s creation—there’s no substitute for that. It’s gorgeous.” Hiking makes the experience more memorable than simply driving through them, but there are pitfalls. Take the time
Rocky Mountain National Park
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The National Park Service manages millions of acres solely for the “enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.” More than 100 years after its founding, the organization is responsible for 59 national parks in the U.S. that draw more than 200 million visitors.
Deb stepped in buffalo dung in Yellowstone. “That was really back to nature,” she says. She wiped off her hiking boots in the grass and kept on going. They’re keeping a spreadsheet to track their travels, logging the places they’ve been and the steps they’ve taken. “Our goal of 10 miles in each state translates into one million steps across America. We have already logged over 700,000 steps in 27 states,” Deb says.
TOP 10 MOST VISITED NATIONAL PARKS 1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park – Tennessee and North Carolina 2. Grand Canyon National Park – Arizona
So far, their only regret is not launching into this when they were younger. They’ve had to schedule their trips around surgeries, job changes, and their responsibilities with aging parents. Plus, they have had to stay in shape to do the rigorous 10-mile hikes.
3. Yosemite National Park – California 4. Rocky Mountain National Park – Colorado 5. Zion National Park – Utah
“We wish we had started this before we were 50, because it’s really challenging,” Deb says. “We are bound and determined to finish it—even if we have to finish it in wheelchairs.”
6. Yellowstone National Park – Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho
Seriously, she says, after they’ve been to all 50 states, they may visit other places in Canada and Europe. “The sky is the limit. We are optimists.”
9. Grand Teton National Park – Wyoming
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7. Olympic National Park – Washington 8. Acadia National Park – Maine
10. Glacier National Park – Montana
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The sky is the limit. We are optimists. Deb Potts
Yosemite National Park
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InformatiON
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PETRIFIED FORE ARIZONA
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LADES EVERG ORIDA FL
If you plan on taking a trip down Route 66, stop at this national gem. Borrowing its name from the now-petrified 225-millionyear-old fallen trees that are its centerpiece, this park contains more than fossils. It also features backcountry hikes, guided activities, and talks by artists from an artist-in-residence program.
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MAMMOTH CAVE KENTUCKY
This park’s cave system features 10 miles of cavern filled with a vast array of geologic features, including stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, travertine dams, and several types of gypsum formations. Tours are available, but they fill up quickly.
The Everglades features 1.5 million acres of wetlands with mangroves, sawgrass marshes, and pine flatwoods. If you like to bike, check out Shark Valley, Snake Bight Trail, and Long Pine Key Nature Trail. Or enjoy the park by airboat; check out Florida Bay, Whitewater Bay, and the Ten Thousand Islands area.
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EE CONGAARR OLINA
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NS TAIOLINA N U O CAR
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Located outside Columbia, South Carolina, this park features 25 miles of hiking trails and 2.4 miles of boardwalk, and holds the largest intact expanse of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in the Southeast. Camp in Longleaf Campground or Bluff Campground for a nominal fee or for free in the backcountry.
One of its lesser-known attractions is waterfalls. Once you’ve had your fill of breathtaking mountain views, check out the Ramsey Cascades. You can take an eight-mile, five-toseven-hour strenuous hike that climbs more than 2,000 feet. From there, you can see the 100-foot waterfall in action!
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NOT-SOTRADITIONAL
RETIREMENT by Kim Painter
Terrence Fettig (left) with coworkers
Here’s what a typical work history used to look like: You got an education and training, took a job, and stuck with it. If you moved up, it was often with the same employer. A few decades later, when you were 65 or so, you retired to a life of leisure—or at least a life without paid work.
But in 2017, the work world is changing. Many young employees move from job to job or freelance gig to freelance gig, with some part-timing in between. Breaks in employment are not shameful; sometimes they are even desired. And in this new work world, retirement is changing too.
More Americans over the age of 65 are staying in the workforce—either by choice or due to financial need.
30%
Some traditionalists still take the proverbial gold watch right on schedule. Others keep their heads down and continue to work full time at their lifelong careers for a host of financial and personal reasons. But many others are taking a cue from millennial workers. They are dipping in and out of employment as episodic workers or gearing down to take part-time jobs or short-term gigs, sometimes in fields outside their lifelong vocations.
19% 12% 2000
2016
2022
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Source: Pew Research Center
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Nearly 19 percent of Americans over age 65 were working in some capacity in 2016, up from 12 percent in 2000, according to the Pew Research Center. That number is expected to reach 30 percent by 2022, the center says. Financial need drives a lot of this trend, with fewer companies offering traditional pensions and many savers and investors still recovering from the last recession, says Farai Chideya, author of The Episodic Career: How to Thrive at Work in the Age of Disruption. But many older workers, like younger workers, are taking advantage of a more fluid work world to follow their passions, says Chideya, a researcher at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University. And others, she says, “are just bored” after getting a taste of retirement. “A lot of people want to be engaged and don’t want to feel like they’ve dropped out of society.” Bottom line: There’s no right way to retire—or not retire—anymore. And, for the most fortunate among us, the decision to keep working—whether part time or on and off—is a choice rather than a grim obligation. Here’s how and why a few folks are doing it.
The Ex-Retiree Terrence Fettig gave life outside the working world more than good chance. He gave it a solid five years, starting with his decision to take early retirement at age 55. He had worked for 30 years in the investment business when “a change in management and philosophy” at his longtime company nudged him out the door. “I had not planned on this,” says Fettig, who lives in Minneapolis. “I do not hunt, fish, or golf. The first several months, I decompressed. But I could see very quickly I was going to be bored.”
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Financial need drives a lot of this trend, with fewer companies offering traditional pensions and many savers and investors still recovering from the last recession. Farai Chideya
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Then, his parents, who lived 400 miles away in Bismarck, North Dakota, began to have health problems, and Fettig found an urgent purpose. He was constantly driving or flying back and forth to see them and help them manage. After they moved to Great Falls, Montana, where Fettig has a sister, he stayed involved as one and then the other passed away. During that difficult time, he realized that his early retirement had been fortuitous. “I got to know my parents a lot better,” he says. “If I had kept working, I don’t know how I would have handled it.” Still, Fettig kept a foot in his life’s work, maintaining his membership in professional societies and going to conferences to network and learn. In early 2010, a couple months after his father’s death, he realized he was ready to start applying for jobs again. “I felt like I had to have a purpose to get up in the morning,” he says. “I felt like I was still at the peak of my abilities.” 21
And he was happy to find that employers were still interested. His first offer came from a company in Georgia, but Fettig says he and his wife, a retired registered nurse, had no desire to move so far from their extended Minnesota family, which includes their two grown children and three grandchildren.
For the past several months, Gallagher has been happily ensconced in his first assignment, as interim executive director of A Child’s Place, a nonprofit organization that works with schools to help homeless students in Charlotte. Officially, he’s working 25 to 30 hours a week. But, he says, “that gets translated to Gallagher time,’’ which might mean three full weeks on and then one week off, or four long days followed by a long weekend.
Soon, he had a better offer: senior portfolio manager at Windsor Financial Group, based in Minneapolis. When the company merged with CAPTRUST Financial Advisors this year, Fettig became a senior vice president and financial advisor responsible for fixed income investments.
That allows Gallagher and his wife, Alice, to do some traveling and play some golf together. And when this gig is over in a few months, Gallagher hopes to move on to another temporary assignment. But he also hopes to take a break next winter for a big trip to South Africa. “Those are the priorities now, not the next board meeting,” he says.
He was 60 years old when he returned to work seven years ago. Today, at 67, Fettig says he has no desire to retire again anytime soon. “I get to work at six every morning,” he says. “I look forward to coming in. I very much enjoy my job. I very much enjoy the people and believe I’m in the right place.”
And yet, he says, full retirement holds little appeal.
The Roving Executive Arthur Gallagher had a 40-year career in higher education, including a long stint as an associate dean at Brown University and a dozen years as president of Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, North Carolina. Then, after spending another couple of years as a vice president at a nonprofit health system, he decided at age 66 to retire. Sort of.
Art and Alice Gallagher
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Someday I’ll fully retire. Most of our friends have fully retired, but right now I don’t have a plan for that.
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Alice Gallagher
“What I didn’t want to do was keep working 80 or 90 hours a week,” he says. Gallagher also was done with climbing the ladder for the next big job. “I’d been there and done that,” he says. But he still wanted to contribute and use his leadership skills.
His solution was joining Levridge Resources, a consulting firm that places temporary executives—chief operating officers, executive directors, and the like—with nonprofit organizations in the midst of leadership transitions.
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“It’s not in my mind to not be working at something. You want to stay intellectually and emotionally engaged in life, and this is a way to do that,” he says. “I don’t want to be waking up in the morning and saying, ‘What am I going to do today?’”
The Part-Timers
For many people who want to keep working past traditional retirement age, the sweet spot is a part-time job. Art Gallagher’s wife, Alice Gallagher, 65, is one of those people. After almost 40 years as a retail store buyer and manager, first for Filene’s and later for Belk, she’s now happy working part time raising funds for Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, a large nonprofit headquartered in Charlotte. “In a typical week, I work about 20 hours for the food bank, play some golf, and play some bridge,” she says. “I can either work from home, or I can go into the food bank. I can work any day of the week. It’s not structured.”
The work is less stressful than her retail career and gives her a chance to give back to the community while leaving plenty of time for friends and fun, she says. “Someday I’ll fully retire,” she says. “Most of our friends have fully retired, but right now I don’t have a plan for that.”
Dave Bernard
And some people who think they are fully retired have no plans to work again—until the perfect part-time job comes along.
That is what happened recently to Dave Bernard, 58, a former sales manager for start-up tech companies who lives in Carmel Valley, California. He says he has been “technically retired” for about five years, since his last job was eliminated in a company takeover. He has filled the time hiking, gardening, and blogging at his site, Retirement: Only the Beginning (at lovebeingretired.com). His wife, who moved from full-time employment to full retirement to working at a temp agency, has been the primary breadwinner. But then, this summer, Bernard got an offer he could not refuse: pouring wine about two days a week in the tasting room of one his favorite wineries. He enjoys the 15-minute walk from his house to the winery. When he gets there, he enjoys learning more about wine and sharing his passion with visitors from all over the world. The best part, he says, is “the social part—getting back out there, being engaged, and seeing people.” Bernard says he’s found the right balance between work and play: “I consider myself lucky that I am able to live this life.”
SOME ADVICE Finding the right temporary or part-time gig—or returning to work after a period of retirement—can be challenging.
Terrence Fettig Unretired financial advisor
Keep networking after leaving your last job. Go to conferences. Stay involved in professional groups. And when you have job options, “choose carefully—don’t just get into any old thing that comes along.”
Dave Bernard Sales manager turned wine pourer
“Don’t pressure yourself to have all the answers right away.” Take time to find the right fit. Consider factors like the ease of the commute and how much you might like your potential coworkers. Pay attention to clues that a job may stress you out. And, if you do not need the job for money or benefits, remind yourself that you can always leave.
Farai Chideya Author of The Episodic Career
Remember that the difference between unemployment and retirement or a “miniretirement” is often a state of mind. Use a break to explore a nonpaying hobby or volunteer gig while keeping your eyes open for opportunities. The truth is that there are fewer as you age: “Age discrimination is real.” One strategy: Develop or brush up on a skill that can bring in quick income when you need it—anything from hair dressing to real estate sales.
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Culinary Collaboration by Sylvana Smith
If you watch television cooking shows—particularly the highintensity cooking competitions—it seems chefs are all self-
space—is much bigger than any one person,” said Montagne. “It wouldn’t be fair; I wouldn’t feel comfortable about it.”
appointed emperors, differentiated only by the severity of
Not at Standard Foods in Raleigh, North Carolina. Executive Chef Eric Montagne is a welcoming, down-to-earth Southerner who has built a kitchen culture that is kind to the earth, kind to local farmers, kind among staff, and, of course, kind to the guests who come to enjoy inventive locavore food and drink.
His modus operandi is truly collaborative. Everybody is encouraged to contribute ideas. “When we R&D new dishes, we’ll put them up to each other to taste two, three, four, or five times. We may need to change one thing, or the plating of it, or the garnish, or technique. Maybe I thought this was my concept, and Will gave me some insight that completely changed the dish for the better. Now it’s our dish, and it’s better because it’s not mine. It’s ours.”
He’s quick to give credit to Chef de Cuisine Will Cisa and the rest of the staff. In fact, he wouldn’t do a solo interview. “This place—we have a market, butcher shop, restaurant, farm, and an outdoor event
Creativity is paramount, because Standard Foods’ farm-to-table mission invites substantial weekly changes and daily harvestdriven tweaks.
their rule.
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Ingredients come first. You won’t see Montagne and Cisa poring over cookbooks or solo experiments. Their work is driven by the products that come from the garden out back, Raleigh City Farm next door, and relationships with 180 small farmers that meet a rigorous sourcing ethos. That could be produce from nearby Under the Oaks Farm, or buttery goat meat and cheeses from Prodigal Farm, or coveted, farm-raised oysters from North Carolina’s outer banks. The day’s wellspring of ingenuity is always changing.
Dinner, Unscripted The process from fresh ingredients to the plate happens very organically and naturally. “Sometimes I have a vision for a dish, but it always changes; it always ebbs and flows, and everybody has input into it,” Montagne said. Often, it starts as simply as knowing a farmer will be delivering a particular ingredient to the restaurant and turns into an exploration of the many ways to use the ingredient. Then, “Our cooks may come in from the garden with something new,” said Montagne. So begins the process of experimentation, tasting, and refinement. All are expected to participate.
persimmon story,” especially since it worked out so well. On a bit of a dare, Montagne told a supplier he wanted all his persimmons. “Our farmer took that to heart and showed up with 600 pounds of persimmons. We had them stacked floor to ceiling, six rows deep. We were like, ‘What are we going to do?’” Montagne said. What follows is a Forrest Gump-style list of the many uses for persimmons. Fresh persimmons, dried persimmons, persimmon salads, persimmon vinaigrette, persimmon ice cream, persimmon sauces, even persimmon syrup on the French toast at Sunday brunch. “It became a joke among the staff that there was persimmon on every single plate,” said Montagne. “I don’t think we wasted one,” said Cisa. Montagne views it as a service to help farmers who have chosen earth-friendly methods that are more difficult. They’re not spraying their crops with pesticides. They’re not using genetically modified seeds. They don’t have distribution networks. “They send me a text message and hope that the six months’ planning, raising that 600 pounds of persimmons pays off, and someone actually buys them,” he said. “So we very much like to take that on as a challenge: buy as much of it as we can and support them when we can.”
A successful dish may start as a creative free-for-all but soon becomes an optimization exercise. “We try to be cognizant of all the senses,” said Executive Chef of Standard Foods, Montagne. “We want you to smell Attention to Every Detail Eric Montagne something. We want you to hear something on the plate, to hear the snap when you eat That sense of empathy is also evident in the something. Texture is very important on a dish. We think of all creation of menu items, the day’s offerings, and even the menu itself. those things, but first and foremost is the flavor. If something “Where possible, we like to encourage guests to be inclusive and doesn’t taste good in a dish, then it doesn’t need to be there.” communal,” said Montagne. “That has been challenging, because people are not used to eating this way in a public setting. In an A complicating factor is that ingredients will change in character elevated dining setting, they can look at the waiter like, ‘Am I from one day to the next. “Some days the tomatoes are riper than actually supposed to use my hands now? Should I dig into the cheek others, and you have to treat them differently,” said Cisa. “You have of that fish?’ Absolutely. That’s why it’s there.” to manipulate them a little differently when they’re not quite as ripe.” Then there are the nuances to the journey of eating a dish; for “We’ll come out to our garden and taste something, and the next day instance, the appearance. “We have a very specifically vague plating it will taste completely different,” said Montagne. “For example, it got style,” said Montagne, laughing. “It’s definitely very organic; it should really hot out today, so the cilantro has a bitter note it didn’t have look like it fell and just happened to land that way, but it’s very yesterday, and we can’t use it in the same application.” specific and very intentional.”
Supporting Local Growers Allegiance to local farmers means some commodities may be scarce—or overabundant. Montagne and Cisa delight in telling “the
The same is true of taste—very intentional at an intimate level, down to the anatomy of a bite. “You don’t want things to be the same flavor all the way through,” said Cisa. “Plates have to have some kind of contrast, or it gets cloying.” 25
Montagne shared an example: “If a plate has spice on it, we’ll talk about whether there needs to be spice on every bite, or should it have spice every third bite and have that carryover until you hit it again. You don’t necessarily need to have something hot in every single bite.” “We also talk about where on your palate the taste lands. When you taste things, you’ll get an initial flavor profile right up front, then something will hit the middle of your palate, and then it will finish in a certain way,” said Montagne. “That’s very important. What flavor did that leave when you were done with it?” “We bring our cooks and everyone into these conversations,” said Montagne. “Sometimes a plate is linear; there’s not enough depth to it, and it needs something else. Sometimes it needs a different flavor or texture, a crunch. Sometimes it’s brightness or acidity. At what point are you going to get to the sauce? Does the sauce need to be everywhere or does it need to be on the bottom? We’re always playing with those elements in developing a plate and an aesthetic.”
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Everything on the plate is very intentional. Things are not there just for an aesthetic, just because it’s pretty. It should be there for a reason. It adds something more to the plate. Eric Montagne
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Chef’s Favorite Montagne’s favorite? That might be the mushroom fritti—partially dehydrated shiitake and oyster mushrooms (or whatever else Fox Farm & Forage has delivered), battered in tapioca flower, fried, tossed in a Carolina gold rice vinaigrette infused with house-fermented and aged black garlic, and garnished with fried shishito peppers, benne seed from Henson Mills, and radish.
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(Left) The grocery and butcher shop (Right) The restaurant
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The bites, as you eat them, and as you move through the plate, should all make sense. Sometimes our plates will finish with a different profile than they start with. Eric Montagne
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“Our menu changes constantly, but this mushroom dish is one of two or three things that have never left the menu, because people would probably riot if it did,” said Montagne. “I would; it’s one of my favorite things to eat.” The son of a commercial fisherman, Montagne also brings a passion for seafood—sometimes with a theatrical twist. The whole fried fish is served upright on the platter as if swimming off the plate. Dig into the cross-hatched skin with your fingers, and pile moist chunks of the catch of the day into cornmeal crepes with hot honey, pickles, and spicy greens. “Some guests get startled by the presentation and the fact that it’s a whole fish; the head is there,” said Montagne. “They’ll say, ‘It’s looking back at me.’ Yes, it’s supposed to be that way, and yes, you’re supposed to eat all of it.” “We really like what we do,” said Montagne, who thrives on the camaraderie of the kitchen. “It’s pretty difficult but always interesting. We like the challenge, and we also like being around each other. We’re very selective about who we hire, so we like everybody here. It’s a lot of fun.”
A CHEF’S JOURNEY Originally from Miami, Eric Montagne grew up hunting, fishing, cooking, and eating with family. After a few years of traditional college, Montagne knew he wanted to build on that family culture with a career he was passionate about. He headed to Johnson & Wales University in Denver to study culinary arts and soon landed jobs in Denver restaurants. Montagne spent three years at the Corner Office Restaurant and Martini Bar, working his way up to sous chef, then moved on to Twelve Restaurant in 2012. In 2014, Montagne moved to North Carolina, where he went to work as executive chef for James Beard Award winner Vivian Howard at her Boiler Room Oyster Bar in Kinston. In 2016, Montage joined Standard Foods Restaurant and Grocery in Raleigh as executive chef of the operation. The venue, owned by developer John Holmes, has a farm-to-table restaurant with craft cocktail bar on one side and a grocery store and butcher selling sustainably sourced foods on the other.
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R E A DY F O R RISING RATES?
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by Kevin Barry
You are probably aware that the Federal Reserve has started a process of raising interest rates from the extraordinarily low levels in place since 2008. While, typically, higher interest rates could stem from a disturbing increase in inflation, wages growing too fast, or a strategy to defend the dollar’s value, the rate increase that we foresee is merely a reversion to normal levels as the economy finally gains its sea legs. But what do rising rates mean for you? How will your household finances be affected? What risks should you be on the lookout for? Households that are predominantly savers will finally benefit from higher interest income, while those who borrow heavily will feel the pain of increased credit card, auto, and other consumer interest charges. Since most households have both debt and savings, the increase in rates will come as a mixed blessing. This article details the reasons for the rate increases, the potential costs and benefits to you, and actions you can take to mitigate the impact of rising rates on your net worth.
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Figure One: Fed Funds and Mortgage Rates, 2007–2017 8%
Fed Began Raising Rates
7%
6%
5%
4% 3%
2%
1%
0%
Jan-07 Jul-07 Jan-08 Jul-08 Jan-09 Jul-09 Jan-10 Jul-10 Jan-11
Jul-11
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Federal Funds Rate
Why are interest rates so low? In the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, unemployment skyrocketed to 10 percent and inflation plummeted. The Federal Reserve was so alarmed about the potential dire impacts of the stock market and housing market collapses that they decided to reduce short-term interest rates almost to zero. They felt that these extraordinarily low interest rates would encourage businesses to invest and consumers to borrow and buy. While the Fed’s actions kept the economy afloat and rekindled economic growth after the crisis, their actions also hurt savers. Savers have suffered extremely low interest rates on their certificates of deposit, money market funds, and other savings vehicles ever since. Ultimately, the Fed was willing to benefit borrowers at the expense of savers because they felt that borrowers would spend any income resulting from lower mortgage interest costs—a positive for the economy.
Does the Federal Reserve set the level for all interest rates? No. The Fed controls short-term interest rates and influences but does not control long-term interest rates. It does this by setting the federal (or fed) funds rate—the rate at which banks lend to each other overnight. For example, while the Fed did not reduce mortgage
Jul-12 Jan-13
Jul-13 Jan-14 Jul-14 Jan-15 Jul-15 Jan-16 Jul-16 Jan-17 Jul-17
30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate
Source: Bloomberg
rates in response to the financial crisis, their strategy of reducing the fed funds rate brought the 30-year mortgage rate down to recordlow levels. Figure One above shows the fed funds rate alongside 30-year mortgage rates since 2007. The monthly savings many households realized by refinancing into lower-rate mortgages stimulated the economy. Lower monthly payments for new home purchases also meant that more people could buy homes. This increased demand further stimulated economic growth by creating jobs and boosting the sale of the many things that go into a finished home, including lumber, concrete, and appliances to name just a few.
Why is the Fed increasing short-term interest rates? The Fed’s zero interest rate policy was a response to an economic crisis. But the emergency is long past. The stock market has increased severalfold from its March 2009 low; unemployment has declined from its 10 percent peak to 4.5 percent today. More than 13 million jobs have been created since early 2009. Extraordinarily low rates are no longer needed. Meanwhile, the inflation rate has increased from near zero in 2009 to 1.75 percent today, and the Federal Reserve would like to see it increase to 2 percent. One predictor of future inflation that the Fed monitors is wages. Wages today are up 2.5 percent year over year, up from 1.5 percent several years ago. That’s a positive sign and fits with the Fed’s gradual approach to interest rate hikes. 29
How high should I expect rates to climb? We expect the Fed to raise the fed funds rate from 1.25 percent— where it sits today—to 2.5 percent by the end of 2018. We expect the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to increase to 4.87 percent. Rates could increase further if we experience inflation higher than 3 percent. A number of factors, including wage increases and commodity price shocks (like in the oil embargo of the early 1970s), can drive inflation. Interest rates could also increase more than expected if investors overreact or misread the Fed’s policy intentions. But because the Federal Reserve began laying the groundwork for higher rates before they began the process, the market is prepared for the policy change. While there remains a chance that the Fed could hike rates too rapidly or too high, we do not expect that to be a problem.
you have an adjustable-rate mortgage and large amounts of credit card debt, your interest-cost increase may well exceed any wage increase or higher yield on savings vehicles you experience.
What are the potential impacts on the U.S. economy? As discussed, an increase in short-term rates favors savers and harms borrowers. Higher credit card bills, for example, should dampen consumer spending on items such as dining out and clothing purchases. Given that consumer spending comprises 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, the need to divert income to pay higher interest charges must, therefore, reduce potential consumption.
Should I refinance my adjustable-rate mortgage? Despite recent increases in short-term rates, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rates are still very low. If you have an adjustable-rate mortgage—for example, a 5/1 or 7/1 ARM—and expect to be in your home for the long term, we recommend you consider refinancing into a fixed-rate mortgage. For most ARMs, when they begin to float, the new interest rate will exceed today’s 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 3.87 percent.
What are the impacts of higher interest rates on my income and net worth? Many people react negatively to the thought of rising rates, but they are not entirely a bad thing. True, higher interest rates will increase the cost of mortgages, credit card debt, and student loans and could negatively impact bond portfolio and commercial real estate values. However, yield-starved investors will finally start to see more meaningful yields on their savings and their bond portfolios. The impact of higher interest rates on your household and investments will vary depending on the type of debt you have—fixed rate versus adjustable rate—as well as the length of the loan. For example, if your debt is solely a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and your savings is in money market funds or short-term Treasurys, you will be an unabashed beneficiary of higher short-term rates. Conversely, if
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The good news is that we also predict a 2.5 percent increase in wages. This extra income is more than five times the amount needed to pay the higher interest costs resulting from a 1 percent increase in short-term rates for the nation as a whole. However, some consumers are more burdened with floating-rate debt than others. For them, a 2.5 percent wage increase may not be enough to offset their higher interest costs.
Will higher interest rates derail the stock market? Interest rates that increase gradually to the levels we expect should not disrupt the stock market. We believe that an increase of 1 to 2 percent is already priced into the stock market. That said, interest rates could derail stock market prices if: • Inflation exceeds the Fed’s 2 percent target; • The value of the U.S. dollar declines inordinately; or • The cost of margin borrowing rises to a level sufficient to cause selling. The biggest factor we will be monitoring is wages. Wage inflation has increased over the last five years. If wages begin to rise at an annual rate greater than 4 percent, both short- and long-term rates would increase more than we currently expect as the Fed acts to head off inflation. As always, the stock market could also be buffeted by other factors, including geopolitical risks in North Korea and elsewhere, a decline in earnings, or a return to higher levels of volatility.
What sectors of the stock market will do better (or worse) with higher rates? Corporations, too, can be net borrowers or savers. As a result, rising interest rates affect sectors disparately. A couple of the most interestrate-sensitive stock market sectors include: • Utilities. Their bond-like attributes mean that utility stocks would likely underperform if interest rates increased by 1 percent or more. While utilities’ earnings are steadier and more predictable than other sectors, they can’t grow rapidly enough over a short period to overcome the effect of higher interest rates. As a result, their stock prices would decline. • Real Estate. Real estate investment trusts (REITs) also have bond-like attributes and are valued using a discount rate such as the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury. So, like a bond, an increase in rates would cause a decline in the value of REITs. In fact, a 1 percent increase in the discount rate would cause a 9 percent decline. • Banks. Banks, on the other hand, benefit when short-term rates rise as their spread— the difference between what banks pay savers and charge lenders—grows. Because of how their balance sheets work, even a 1 percent increase in spread resulting from rising short-term rates would increase banks’ return on equity significantly.
Conclusion The upcoming increase in interest rates will affect your income, expenses, and net worth, but we don’t foresee a dramatic impact for most people. Our base case suggests an increase in short-term rates of between 1 and 2 percent. That’s enough to put the U.S. on a path toward normal interest rates, but not enough to frighten the stock or bond markets. We believe that the markets’ expectations for higher rates are priced in, but we acknowledge other risks, including geopolitical tensions abroad and at home, that could create volatility or cause a short-term pullback. As always, we recommend a diversified portfolio and a long-term investment horizon as you work toward your financial goals.
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Our base case suggests an increase in short-term rates of between 1 and 2 percent. That’s enough to put the U.S. on a path toward normal interest rates, but not enough to frighten the stock or bond markets.
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STOCKS PERFORMING WELL THIS YEAR All asset classes moved higher in the third quarter—and remain in positive territory for the year. Remarkably, both U.S. and international stocks have notched gains each month of 2017, leading them to double-digit gains for the year so far. Meanwhile, other asset classes have posted modest but positive returns. • U.S. stocks continued their rally into record territory this quarter, driven by positive corporate earnings reports and contained inflation. • Both developed and emerging market international stocks surged in the third quarter on the uptick in global growth. Emerging market stocks remain this year’s top performer, aided by a stable Chinese economy and a weaker U.S. dollar. • Bonds fell modestly in September as interest rates rose. Nonetheless, they inched higher this quarter and have managed a small gain for the year. • Although fundamentals remain solid, higher interest rates put pressure on public real estate this quarter. • Strategic opportunities posted a gain in the third quarter but continue to lag most other asset classes this year.
21.6%
MARKET INDEX PERFORMANCE (as of 9.30.2017)
13.9% Q3 2017 YTD 2017 7.1% 6.3% 3.3%
3.1% 1.9%
0.9% U.S. Bonds
4.6%
Strategic Opportunities
1.1% Real Estate
U.S. Stocks
International Stocks
LOOKING FORWARD Central banks are slowly withdrawing support for capital markets as global economic growth remains firm. Starting in October, the Federal Reserve will begin to shrink the bond portfolio it built to support the U.S. economy during the financial crisis, and it could act to raise interest rates again this year. The European Central Bank may soon follow the Fed’s lead. Tax reform is next up on the Trump administration’s pro-growth agenda, but details will take time to unfold, and the outcome is far from certain. Congress temporarily dealt with the U.S. debt limit and passed legislation to avert a government shutdown, but those issues must still be addressed in the coming months. While market volatility has been particularly subdued this year, this calm could vanish quickly due to political uncertainty or geopolitical concerns, such as escalating tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.
Asset class returns are represented by the following indexes: U.S. stocks (Russell 3000 Index), international stocks (MSCI All-Country World ex. U.S. Index), U.S. bonds (Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index), real estate (Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index), and strategic opportunities (HFRX Absolute Return Index).
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SETTING LIMITS WITH THE
BOOMERANG GENERATION by Kathleen Burns Kingsbury
When I graduated from college in 1988, I never considered moving back in with my parents. My goal was to get a job, find an apartment, and start living in the real world. All my friends had the same goal: to leave the proverbial parental nest. But times have changed. Today, 63 percent of millennials move back home after finishing school, and 74 percent receive financial support from their parents after college graduation.1,2 Like a boomerang, parents launch their kids—only to find them bouncing back into their nest. This trend is forcing parents to ask themselves difficult questions, and many are having trouble finding easy answers. Take Matt and Beth, parents to three adult children ranging in age from 20 to 26. They feel that it is their responsibility to financially support their children until they launch as adults into the world. This includes paying for half of their college tuition at a university of their choice, their living expenses, and letting them live with them rent-free after graduation. Matt and Beth are both surprised by how long it is taking their children to transition from financial dependence to independence. Beth’s words ring true for many parents: “I assumed that my kids would go to college, find a job, and they would be able to take care themselves. We never had that conversation with them about finances and what to expect after college. But now I wish we had.” Her husband, Matt, shares the sentiment. His parents paid for many of his living expenses during college, and half of his undergraduate tuition. Matt wanted to give the same gift to his kids. Looking back, he wishes that he had saved more aggressively and taken into account that one or more of his children may take longer than he did to transition into adulthood. For his family, the financial consequences include Beth working full time to fund some of the kids’ expenses and the couple traveling less than they would like at this stage in their marriage. If Matt and Beth’s situation sounds familiar, you are not alone. Most parents I talked to struggle to find a balance between helping their children financially and saving for retirement. While 80 percent of
baby-boomer parents feel good about supporting their children, and only 10 percent withhold monetary support, doing so can have real financial consequences.3 As Rochelle, a divorced mother of two, shared, “Paying for my kids’ college educations and helping them after they graduated has affected my retirement savings a lot.” As a parent, communicating your values and setting financial limits with your adult children is complicated. There is no one right answer, and every family situation is different. However, one thing is clear. Discussing money with your children and helping them to become independent adults needs to be a conscious decision. Ideally, you start when your children are young, but you can make up for lost time by starting these dialogues today. With 5 million adult millennials still living at home, representing 1 million more than a decade ago, this boomerang trend is here to stay.4 If you are a parent in this situation, here are a few tips to help you launch your adult children into the world. 33
Communicate Your Values and Set Limits Rochelle believes in affordable education. She let her children know that she would only pay for them to go to a state school. This financial limit helped her son and daughter understand what was important to their mother and, at the same time, allowed them to enjoy a fully funded college education. Teri has two children who have launched. She and her husband set a clear expectation. She states, “The transition to living independently as an adult and becoming financially independent is a family expectation.” We communicated this to both of our children from an early age. Teri spent time teaching their children how to take on more monetary responsibilities as they matured. By the time they graduated, they had the skills to make and manage their own money. Spend time pondering what is important to you and what financial lessons you want to pass down to your children. Don’t be afraid to talk about money and let your children know your financial limits. It is okay to say no and let your young adult struggle to figure out how to make ends meet. You can start teaching these lessons when they are in high school, so they can develop a sense of mastery. But letting them make mistakes and being there as a support system while they pick up the pieces is important if you want your children to flourish into financially savvy adults.
Crunch the Numbers Matt’s middle child attended a private university and took out student loans to pay for his half of his tuition. Now he faces very few job prospects in his field and a large monthly student loan payment. Both parents wish they had encouraged him to crunch some numbers to understand the long-term consequences of his college choice. When your teens are looking at schools, take time to do some math with them. (If your kids are older, do this exercise now, as it is never too late to teach your children about finance.) Calculate their tuition and related expenses while at college, and then project what their financial responsibilities could look like once they graduate. Have them research the cost of rent, utilities, food, cell phone service, and car expenses, including gas, insurance, and maintenance. Include any projected student loan repayments they may incur. Then adjust 34
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these figures for inflation. Seeing numbers in black and white can be a great wake-up call for your teenagers. It will help them realize the impact of their monetary decisions now and provide a tool for you to discuss how they can work toward managing these fiscal responsibilities for themselves going forward.
Coach Your Children on Financial Skills Teri had her kids practice taking on more fiscal responsibility gradually. She explains her strategy, “When they turned 16, we provided their first car with the expectation that they would pay for gasoline. This meant that they would need to work on a part time basis to pay for this expense.” Teri and her husband paid 100 percent of vehicle maintenance expenses at first, then 50 percent. They shifted the full responsibility to the children over time. She believes this coaching paid off. Like any skill, learning to earn and manage money takes time to master. Provide plenty of opportunities for your children to practice using financial skills and making decisions. While you may want to save them the heartache of making a mistake, failing, brushing themselves off, and learning from the experience is the best way to grow. Let them know that no one is perfect, and share your past mistakes and successes as a way of seeing you in a realistic light. Then support them as they pave their own path toward financial independence. Raising financially fit adult children is no easy task. Consider enlisting the help of a trusted financial professional. This person can help you identify your family values, offer tips and tools for teaching young people about money, and listen when being a parent of a millennial gets a little stressful. Getty Images
Remember that even though you might feel like you are the only parents facing this dilemma, you are not alone.
Nelson, Vicki, “Boomerang Kids: When Graduation Means a Move Back Home,” College Parent Central. Goudreau, Jenna, “Nearly 60% of Parents Provide Financial Support to Adult Children,” Forbes. 3 Larson, Lindsay R.L., Jacqueline K. Eastman, and Dora E. Bock. “A Multi-Method Exploration of the Relationship Between Knowledge and Risk: The Impact on Millennials’ Retirement Investment Decisions.” Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice 24, No. 1 (Winter 2016): 72-90. 4 Ibid. 1
2
FROM SUCCESS TO SIGNIFICANCE
by Nanci Hellmich
Creating a lasting legacy can be an amazing journey filled with surprising twists and turns. Just ask Dean Niewolny. By his early 40s, he was on top of the world, overseeing a $100 million business for a financial services company in Chicago. He had a beautiful wife, two children, several homes, expensive clothes, luxury cars, a boat, and a small airplane.
But one day in 2006, Niewolny looked out of his office window from a skyscraper with a view of Lake Michigan and said to himself, “There has to be more to life than this.” Despite his success, he felt empty inside. The thought occurred to him: “If I died today, so what?” He realized he wouldn’t leave a legacy that mattered. During that period, which he calls the season of “smoldering discontent,” Niewolny reevaluated his life, searching for new passions and ways to give back. He used ideas outlined by Bob Buford in his book Halftime: Moving from Success to Significance. Buford founded the Halftime Institute, a nonprofit organization that helps successful men and women create new lives defined by joy, impact, and balance. As part of his journey to creating a lasting legacy, Niewolny went on a church mission trip to Africa, where he saw people who had
very little but were far happier than he was. When he came back, he and his wife decided to sell their boat, plane, several houses, and other luxuries that he thought would bring him joy and happiness but gave him more headaches than anything else. The couple used some of the proceeds to start an orphanage in South Africa. “So much joy came out of that,” he says. “That was the first time I realized when I took the focus off myself and put the focus on others, I had incredible joy and balance in my life.” Niewolny says the purpose and passion for the second half of his life is giving back to those in need and making a difference in other people’s lives. At 54, he’s chief executive officer of the Halftime Institute and author of the new book, Trade Up: How to Move from Just Making Money to Making a Difference. 35
Finding a Greater Purpose
“You don’t want to face your death and think, ‘Oh, I missed that part of my life. I never got around to that.’ You don’t want to face that regret,” she says.
Psychologists say many people hit the pause button at some point during their lives to search for a deeper meaning and purpose. It can happen at any age from the early 20s to midlife and beyond.
Giving back or serving others doesn’t mean you have to quit your job or join the ministry or a nonprofit group. Some people find plenty of ways to serve in their own backyards.
This kind of reevaluation often leads to a better life. In fact, studies show that finding meaning in life and doing things that emphasize your abilities, skills, and strengths contributes significantly to happiness. Other research suggests that money is associated with increases in happiness only up to a point; beyond that point, income no longer contributes to more happiness, says Frank Farley, a psychologist with Temple University in Philadelphia and a former president of the American Psychological Association. This is true for many but doesn’t apply to everybody. “If you’ve been doing the same gig for decades, and you are highly successful, you may want to ask yourself: ‘How many more money mountains are there to climb? How many successes do I need to chalk up?’ It may be time to look for new venues in your life,” Farley says.
For instance, Niewolny worked with an executive who helped homeless people employed by the company he worked for. Another female executive found her calling was rocking the babies of drug-addicted mothers at a hospital in Houston. Still another corporate leader helped a nonprofit group buy and renovate a house for homeless women. Dean Niewolny
(Top) Niewolny with children while in South Africa (Bottom) Center for Hearing and Speech in Houston
“
That was the first time I realized when I took the focus off myself and put the focus on others, I had incredible joy and balance in my life.
”
Dean Niewolny
That’s where generosity comes in. Many folks decide that they need to give back to the world. “I have been studying human motivation for decades, and I’m often asked what is on the top of the list of great human motives. I answer generosity, which I call the ‘G factor.’ Generosity—the giving instinct—is so profound,” he says. Giving goes hand in hand with compassion, and most people are compassionate for those in need, says Janet Karzmark, a life coach and licensed marriage and family therapist in San Jose, California. Successful people who’ve been busy striving and accomplishing most of their lives may not have had time to explore the compassionate part of their personalities. But if they volunteer for a humanitarian crisis or get involved in other important causes, their lives feel more whole and meaningful, she says.
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For many people, using their time and talents in their own sphere of influence is key to creating their significance. That’s the case for Alan Smith, 54, president and chief executive officer of Rockcliff Energy, an oil and gas company in Houston. For years, he was so busy that “I felt like I was drowning,” he says.
After reading Halftime and working with a mentor at the Halftime Institute, Smith carved out more time in his life by stepping off several charity and industry boards. He decided to narrow his focus to helping a few organizations and other people reach their full potential. He’s now an elder at his church, mentors younger, high-energy, high-potential men, and serves as chairman of the Center for Hearing and Speech in Houston, a nonprofit that teaches deaf children who are given access to technology to listen and speak. This cause has a special place in his heart because one of his daughters was born deaf, but thanks to cochlear implants and help from the center, she can hear now. “The center had a huge impact on her life,” Smith says. “You have a finite amount of time on earth, and you’ve been given many gifts and talents. It’s a matter of being more intentional and figuring out how you are going to use them,” he says.
Beginning the Journey There are several ways to begin the journey toward finding your purpose and creating a lasting legacy, Niewolny says. He says to start with the end in mind. To do that, he describes an exercise that he calls the “80th birthday party.” Here’s how it works: Imagine you’re having a big birthday party with all your friends and family in attendance. Using a microphone in the room, the guests will recap your role in their lives. Write down what you hope they’ll say. Also, write down the answer to these questions: What is all the gaining costing you? What in your life has the greatest value, and what are you doing to protect it? If you were to reorder your life to finish well, what evidence would confirm that you were on the right track? Another approach is to ask yourself: If you were living a perfect life two years from now, what would that look like? Not what would you be doing, but what would it look like? Answers to these questions vary. Niewolny says he wants his wife to be flourishing and their marriage to be a priority. He wants his grown children to have high self-esteem. And he’d like everyone in the family to be in good health and thriving in their relationship with the Lord. But you don’t have to be a Christian to apply these ideas to your life. The concepts have been used by “people of many faiths and no faith.
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We have worked with folks who are Jewish, Muslim, atheist,” Niewolny says. “I believe God has put it on their hearts to do something and make a difference.” It’s difficult to do this on your own, he says. You need a coach—a certified Halftime coach, spouse, mentor, friend, colleague, pastor, or life coach—to guide you, encourage you, and hold you accountable. “There is a reason that the best athletes in the world have coaches even though they may be at the top of their game,” he says.
EXCERPT FROM HALFTIME: MOVING FROM SUCCESS TO SIGNIFICANCE BY BOB BUFORD The first half of life has to do with achieving and gaining, learning, and earning. The majority do this in the most ordinary of ways: getting an education, entering the workforce, starting a family, buying a house, earning enough money to provide for needs as well as a few wants, setting goals, and climbing toward them. Some chase the prize in a more spectacular, aggressive fashion: closing a major deal, winning the big case, acquiring through leveraged buyouts and mergers, doing whatever it takes to make it to the top. The second half is riskier because it has to do with living beyond the immediate. It is about releasing the seed of creativity and energy that has been implanted within us, watering and cultivating it so that we may be abundantly fruitful. It involves investing our gifts in service to others—and receiving the personal joy that comes as a result of that spending. Bob Buford
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Living Out a Mission Figuring out your personal mission in life and acting on it can be life-changing, says Fielding Miller, chief executive officer and co-founder of CAPTRUST Financial Advisors. He speaks from experience. During the first half of his life, Miller says he set a hectic pace—trying to raise a family, build a business, stay involved in the community, and maintain an active social life. “My time was overly weighted toward work. I was a complete workaholic,” he says. At age 40, he read Halftime, and it prompted him to reassess his values, aspirations, talents, and relationships. He started thinking about what he wanted for his family—and from his own life. One idea from the book resonated with him: “What will I do about what I believe?” The result of that period of introspection was “a total heart change, an epiphany moment,” Miller says. The book changed his view of why he was working. It helped him think about the endgame—what would matter when his career was over. It didn’t take long for this new mentality to yield fruit. Gradually he began to look at everything through a new lens. He made decisions differently and approached relationships differently. “My personal mission is to live a life that is pleasing to God by being significant in the lives I touch,” Miller says. “I would like to be remembered for fulfilling my mission.” And it’s never too late, or too early, to get it.
Miller in his office at CAPTRUST
“
My personal mission is to live a life that is pleasing to God by being significant in the lives I touch. Fielding Miller
”
EXCERPT FROM TRADE UP: HOW TO MOVE FROM JUST MAKING MONEY TO MAKING A DIFFERENCE BY DEAN NIEWOLNY Wherever you find people, you can find the amazing, life-giving power of purpose. Even among those who have been in the workforce for many years, there is often a willingness to change careers to gain greater purpose. We come with a DNA-driven desire, a physical compulsion, to know why we exist and to act on it. And the majority of us, however we define success, come to a time when having it for its own sake pales next to the real trophies of true direction: our effects on other lives, a chance to make a difference.
Dean Niewolny
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READER Q & A In this issue, we explore the rising cost of health care in retirement, how long to retain your financial documents, and disability insurance for the self-employed.
Given the rising cost of health care, how much will I need to save to cover healthcare costs in retirement?
A
Health care is one of the biggest costs for most people during retirement. According to recent data from Fidelity, a couple, both 65 years old and retiring this year, will need approximately $275,000 to cover healthcare costs in retirement. Fidelity assumes that the spouses will live to between the ages of 86 and 88 and that the couple has traditional Medicare insurance. The estimate considers premiums, co-payments, deductibles, and out-of-pocket drug costs, but does not include the cost of a nursing home or other long-term-care expenses. This represents a 6 percent—or $15,000—increase over last year’s estimate, significantly higher than the general inflation rate for goods and services in the U.S. economy in recent years. The Fidelity estimate is helpful because it offers a rough approximation of healthcare costs— and an anchor for planning purposes. But healthcare costs are highly variable, so the averages don’t mean much for an individual or couple’s specific circumstances. Your analysis shouldn’t stop there.
Consider the following: ■■ Since healthcare costs are only expected to rise in the future, younger people should expect to spend more than the $275,000 estimate. ■■ The cost of chronic conditions such as diabetes, cancer, Parkinson’s, arthritis, high blood pressure, and osteoporosis will raise the annual cost of health care in retirement for an individual or couple. Getty Images
■■ Because longevity is one of the biggest drivers of healthcare costs, healthy retirees will end up with higher lifetime costs. 39
Key point: You should expect to spend more for any number of reasons. In fact, HealthView Services, a firm that specializes in healthcare cost analysis and planning, estimates that a 65-year-old couple in Medicare’s high-income tier can expect healthcare costs of $565,142 during retirement. That’s more than twice the Fidelity estimate. HealthView takes a more optimistic view on life expectancy and expects that higher-income retirees will want more than the basic care and services that Medicare provides. Of course, the estimates discussed here assume Medicare as it currently exists. Premium increases and changes to Medicare cost-sharing arrangements could be undertaken in the future. If this happens, higher-income retirees can expect to bear the brunt of cost increases.
How long should I keep financial documents like canceled checks, bank statements, tax records, and brokerage statements?
A
It’s fitting that, in an issue featuring a story on the merits of simplifying life, we address this question. Holding on to old financial documents can stand in the way of downsizing and turn into a significant source of household clutter. In the absence of clear guidance, many people hang on to items like tax records, bank, brokerage, and retirement plan statements, and bills indefinitely. In most cases, that’s entirely unnecessary.
Here is a breakdown of how long to keep financial documents: ■■ Dispose of (almost) immediately This list includes ATM and credit card receipts, bills, checks, and bank deposit and withdrawal slips. Save them if you need them to support your tax return; otherwise, dispose of them as soon as you reconcile them with your next monthly statement. Also, there is no need to hold on to junk mail, credit card offers, or miscellaneous correspondence from your bank or other financial institutions related to policy changes or disclosures.
■■ Keep for a year or more You should hold on to loan documents until you pay the loan off, then dispose of the papers. Hold on to vehicle titles as long as you own the vehicle. If you invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or other securities, keep your purchase confirmations until you sell the investment so you can establish cost basis. If cost basis information appears on your annual statement, hold on to the annual statement and dispose of the confirmations.
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■■ Keep up to one year Keep your quarterly retirement plan statement until you receive your year-end summary statement. If everything matches up, shred your quarterly statements. And unless you are self-employed, there is no need to hang on to monthly bank statements for more than a year.
■■ Keep for seven years You should keep tax filings and related documents—such as W-2s, canceled checks, receipts, and documentation of mortgage interest and charitable deductions—for seven years. ■■ Keep indefinitely While you may not consider them financial documents, make sure you hang on indefinitely to important records such as birth and death certificates, marriage licenses, divorce and bankruptcy decrees, Social Security cards, and military discharge records. Store them in a safe-deposit box, if possible. Also hold on to estate-planning documents, life insurance policies, and a list of the contents of your safe-deposit box. Of course, if you do decide to purge your home of dated financial documents, make sure that you dispose of them wisely. If you have a backlog of documents to get rid of, drop them off at a reputable local service that will shred them (while you watch!). Going forward, you may want to invest in a good, affordable shredder for day-to-day document disposal.
I am self-employed. Should I consider disability insurance?
A
Since your ability to earn income is your most important asset, you may want to consider purchasing disability insurance. The reality is that you have a greater chance of suffering a long-term disability during your working years than dying. This is true whether you are self-employed or work for a large corporation. But, as a self-employed person without access to big-company benefits, suffering an illness or injury without disability income insurance could create a hardship for your business and family. Unfortunately, financial obligations don’t stop just because you become sick or disabled and can’t work. You are personally liable for the debts of your business, because as a sole proprietor, there is no legal distinction between personal and business assets. A disability income insurance policy pays cash benefits in the event you are unable to work due to illness or accident as defined in your policy. Most policies replace 50 to 70 percent of your salary, and typically benefits received are tax-free. Policies can be tailored to provide for the essentials of daily life, and premium and policy terms can be designed to fit your budget and needs. You may also want to consider business overhead expense insurance. Because you’re selfemployed, you probably generate most of your business’s income. Business overhead expense insurance provides funds to pay the normal operating expenses of your business if you suffer a disability and are unable to work. This allows you to keep the business open until you recover, replace yourself with another person, or sell the business.
If you have a question for the VESTED team, we’d love to hear from you and see if we can help. Please send your questions to us at VESTEDmagazine@captrustadvisors.com.
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GIVING BACK
More than 600 runners line up for the first annual Bond Brothers 5K in Cary, North Carolina
Bond Brothers 5K Run On September 16, the CAPCommunity Foundation co-hosted its first annual 5K run fundraiser in partnership with Bond Brothers Beer Company in Cary, North Carolina. The event that included a fivekilometer race around downtown Cary followed by a block party on the brewery’s grounds tapped into the growing popularity of quality craft brews and fun runs in the Triangle area. The race attracted 660 runners and raised more than $40,000 for the CAPCommunity Foundation.
Triangle Hops for Hope For a third year, CAPTRUST sponsored and participated in Triangle Hops for Hope, an event that pairs corporate teams with Raleigh-area craft breweries to create an original cask of beer to raise money for charity. This year’s competition featured brews from 25 teams and raised $70,000 to benefit Children’s Flight of Hope, a local nonprofit organization that provides air transportation for children to access specialized medical care. Participants showcased their creations to more than 900 attendees at a beer festival held at Raleigh Beer Garden on September 23. Team CAPTRUST brewed a piña colada gose, a kettlebrewed sour, that took third place for Judge’s Choice.
Giving Update In addition to raising funds for Read and Feed, our 2017 Charity of Choice, the CAPCommunity Foundation has provided financial support in the form of $1,000 grants to 46 charities in 18 communities where CAPTRUST does business so far this year. These small grant requests are generated by CAPTRUST employees, vetted, and approved by the foundation’s grants committee to support causes aligned with the foundation’s mission to enrich the lives of children in the communities we serve.
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Season Fall | 2017 | 20XX
(Top) Volunteers help runners sign up for the 5K race (Middle) Volunteers from CAPCommunity Foundation clean a mobile classroom for Charity of Choice Read and Feed (Bottom) The CAPTRUST team at Hops for Hope
CAPTRUST GROWTH We are pleased to announce a number of new financial advisors and regional offices. Tampa and Hollywood, Florida In May, CAPTRUST expanded its Southeast and national presence when CapTrust Advisors joined our organization. CapTrust Advisors was founded in Tampa in 1998 and, together with CAPTRUST, was part of the larger CapTrust organization headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. After many years partnering through the CapTrust Association, the two companies are now together under the CAPTRUST brand. The CapTrust Advisors team brings decades of investment consulting expertise in the wealth management, retirement, and foundation and endowment businesses and deepens our bench in (Left to right) Seth Vermillion, Jeffrey Ireland, John key areas. One highlight is the Tampa team’s Griffith, Eric Bailey, Kipp Small, and Kyle Campbell focus on offering these services to religious organizations under the leadership of Stephen Schott, principal and director of institutional religious retirement and foundation services. This merger adds $19 billion of client assets under advisement and offices in Tampa and Hollywood, Florida. Please welcome the following financial advisors: • Eric Bailey, CFA® • Matt Brown • Alicia Bryan, CFA® • Chase Burkhart, CFP® • Kyle Campbell, CFA® • Matt Doyle, CFP®
• John Frady • Jeb Graham, CPFA®, CEBS®, CIMA® • John Griffith Jr., JD, CPC, AIF® • Shale Latter, CPFA® • Scott Lowke, CFP®, AIF® • Samuel (Bo) Perry Jr., CFP®
• Robert Piccirilli, CIMA® • Roger Robson • Kevin Schmid, CFA® • Stephen Schott • Kipp Small, CRPS® • Mike Valone, CFA®
Lynchburg and Lexington, Virginia CAPTRUST announced in September that Lynchburg, Virginia-based registered investment advisor Davidson & Garrard joined the firm’s growing wealth management advisor team. Founded in 1987, D&G focuses on customized investment advisory services for individuals, families, endowments, nonprofits, institutions, and retirement plans. The firm brings 30 years of experience and 13 employees who operate out of offices in Lynchburg and Lexington, Virginia. Please welcome the following financial advisors: • Marcus Borel, CFP® • Stephen Crank, CFA®, CIC • David Hansen • Jack Flippin, CFP®
• Torii Jones, CFA® • Bill Paxton, CFP® • Lewis Thomas II
(Left to right) Lewis Thomas, David Hansen, and Marcus Borel
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CAPTRUST GROWTH Troy Anderson
Troy joined CAPTRUST’s Des Moines, Iowa, office as a vice president, financial advisor responsible for providing retirement plan advisory services to corporate fiduciaries. Prior to joining the firm, he was a client manager at Wolin & Associates. Troy received a Bachelor of Science degree in business with a concentration in management from Trinity International University and a Master of Arts degree in sports administration from Northwestern University.
Patrick Flint
Patrick serves as a vice president, financial advisor in CAPTRUST’s Raleigh headquarters. He is responsible for providing defined contribution, defined benefit, and nonqualified plan advisory services to retirement plan sponsors. Prior to joining CAPTRUST, Patrick worked as a strategic relationship manager at John Hancock. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in operations management with a concentration in business from University of Wisconsin and a Master of Business Administration degree in finance from University of Wisconsin.
Sean Teesdale, CFA®
Sean joined CAPTRUST as a vice president, financial advisor responsible for providing retirement plan advisory services to corporate fiduciaries. Prior to joining the firm in its Doylestown, Pennsylvania, office, Sean was a client advisor, portfolio manager at Legacy Advisors. He has worked in the industry since 2004. Sean received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree in finance from Villanova University and has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation. 44
Fall | 2017
NEW HIRES We have also made a few significant hires in our advisor support and trading teams. Eric Bailey, CFA®
Eric joined CapTrust Advisors in Tampa in 1998 as one of the company’s founding partners. He became part of CAPTRUST in 2017 when CapTrust Advisors merged with CAPTRUST. In addition to his role as a principal and financial advisor, he is responsible for managing the transition of key functions from Tampa to Raleigh and overall integration of our new Tampa office. Prior to co-founding CapTrust Advisors, Eric was a vice president at PaineWebber (now UBS). He has worked in the industry since 1992. Eric received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting and finance from the University of South Florida.
Scott Bruin
Scott joined CAPTRUST when CapTrust Advisors merged with us in May. He had been with CapTrust Advisors in Tampa since 2012. In his new role, Scott is director of wealth services responsible for growth and development of CAPTRUST’s wealth management business. Previously, he worked as a regional director at Wells Fargo and spent more than 25 years as a financial advisor, branch manager, and director of wealth planning services at Smith Barney (now Morgan Stanley). He has worked in the industry since 1985. Scott received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stetson University.
Romaric Dautun
Romaric is a senior manager responsible for managing CAPTRUST’s centralized trading team in Raleigh. Prior to joining the firm, he spent nine years in trading and investment banking at Barclays Capital in New York City. He has worked in the industry since 2007. Romaric received a Bachelor of Arts degree in French literature with a concentration in genetics from North Carolina State University.
CAPTRUST RECOGNITION Number One Ranking
In July, Financial Advisor Magazine ranked CAPTRUST number one among registered investment advisors with assets in excess of $1 billion—making it the firm’s second year running to achieve this distinction. The magazine’s annual survey analyzes several metrics, including assets under advisement, asset growth over the trailing year, and assets per client, as well as other indicators of business success.
Biggest and Best for Retirement Plan Advisors
InvestmentNews recently published industry research on the trend of retirement plan advisors building their practices through partnering with larger firms that provide scale economies and business support. With $194 billion of defined contribution assets under advisement and 85 retirement-plan-focused advisors, CAPTRUST ranked as the largest of the firms studied. Institutional Investor’s inaugural Defined Contribution Industry Leaders study released in May rated CAPTRUST as provider of the best defined contribution services to retirement plan-centric advisors. Our business model includes centralized support for advisors, including assistance with client service, investment research, marketing, compliance, finance, operations, and trading.
Named to Fast 50
The Triangle Business Journal named CAPTRUST to its list of the 50 fastestgrowing private companies in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. Fast 50 winners are selected and ranked based on a formula that considers revenue growth and profitability in the preceding three calendar years. Recipients are recognized not only based upon financial metrics, but also on their contributions to the Triangle’s economy. CAPTRUST has been included on the TBJ list for the past four years, ranking as high as number seven in 2015.
The Financial Times included 16 CAPTRUST advisors in the publication’s annual list of Top 401 Defined Contribution Plan Advisors. Honorees must specialize in serving retirement plans, advise on at least $50 million in defined contribution plan assets, and have at least 20 percent of their client assets in retirement plans. The list included CAPTRUST financial advisors: • Karen Casillas, CFS (Los Angeles) • John Davenport, CFA® (New York) • Mark Davis, QPFC (Los Angeles) • Jean Duffy, ARPC, AIFA® (Des Moines) • Shaun Eskamani (Raleigh) • Todd Jones, CFP®, AIF®, ARPS (Raleigh) • Ernest Liebre (Greenwich) • John Martin, AIF® (Raleigh)
• Jim Pierce, CEBS (Des Moines) • Mike Pratico (Portland) • Paul Schaffer, AIF® (Doylestown) • Barry Schmitt (Richmond) • Paul Stibich (Akron) • Jim Strodel (Charlotte) • Scott Wertheim, AIF®, CEBS (Doylestown) • Steve Wilt, CIMA® (Akron)
Whitmore Receives Excellence Award
Kathleen Whitmore received the Excellence Award at CAPTRUST’s July SYNERGY meeting. She was recognized for her record of commitment and mastery of her retirement counselor role. Working with her clients and their retirement plan participants, Kathleen always helps to ensure a high-quality experience. Over the past two years, she has logged more than 1,500 individual consultations and seen another 2,000 participants via group meetings. And her participant feedback survey scores are consistently off the charts.
Goldstein Wins C-Suite Award
CAPTRUST Chief Operating Officer Ben Goldstein was one of 12 executives recognized by the Triangle Business Journal at its inaugural C-Suite Awards luncheon held in August at The Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary, North Carolina. The C-Suite Awards identify and honor the region’s outstanding corporate leaders for their invaluable contributions to the Triangle community and the significant impacts they make toward the success of their respective organizations. This year’s class included individuals from a variety of industries, including higher education, technology, finance, and real estate.
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We know that investors are looking for experienced and trusted advisors who can provide wealth management services that are focused on their unique circumstances and tailored to their goals. In more than 25 years of acting as a fiduciary to some of the country’s biggest retirement plans, we have gained valuable insights that we can apply to your
Bill Paxton, CFP® Senior Vice President, Financial Advisor Lynchburg, VA Torii Jones, CFA® Financial Advisor Lynchburg, VA David Hansen Senior Vice President, Financial Advisor Lexington, VA
wealth planning and investment challenges.
www.captrustadvisors.com • 919.870.6822 | toll free: 800.216.0645 • 4208 Six Forks Road, Suite 1700 | Raleigh, NC 27609