wellington | professional
Community Service Is Important To Financial Planners Ben And Joanna Boynton Story by Chris Levy • Photos by Abner Pedraza
Ben and Joanna Boynton have been financial professionals in Wellington for more than 20 years. Ben is a fourthgeneration native of Palm Beach County who grew up in Wellington, while Joanna hails from Gainesville. They met while studying finance at the University of Florida in the early 1990s. Ben’s great-grandparents were pioneers in Palm Beach County who became active in the agricultural industry in the Glades in the 1930s. His parents came to the Wellington area because it was uniquely situated between the Glades and the coastal Palm Beach area. Ben remains active on the board of the family’s agricultural company, Wedgworth Farms. Wellington was a vastly different community back when Ben was growing up in the 1980s. “I still remember when a fast food restaurant came to Wellington,” he recalled. “It was a Checkers, and we were all very excited to check it out.” When the couple first met, Joanna had never heard of Wellington, but she still recalls her initial impression. “It’s very flat,” she said. “North Florida has a lot of hills.” Both Boyntons graduated from the University of Florida with bachelor’s degrees in business administration with majors in finance. After graduating, they became certified financial planners (CFPs) and decided to settle in the Wellington area with the intention of starting their own financial firm. At the time, there were few financial services available locally. “Our goal was to bring the first fullservice financial brokerage to Wellington,” Ben said. “We achieved that in 1997.” The offices of the Boynton Financial Group are located within the Mizner
Place plaza on South Shore Blvd. They are currently in the process of renovating the interior of their building, which they recently bought, to make it feel more like a home. One of the rooms toward the center will designed to resemble a living room. Among the features is a vintage Coca-Cola machine, as Ben is a noted collector of antiques. The Boyntons have two children: a son, William, and a daughter, Catherine. They attend the Oxbridge Academy, where they engage in a number of sports and activities. William is pursuing his pilot’s license, while Catherine is interested in the performing arts and recently appeared on stage in Wellington as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde for the Dance Arts Conservatory Broadway Stars program. Neither child has yet shown interest in a career in finance and following in their parents’ footsteps, which is fine with Ben and Joanna. “We try to maintain a balance,” Joanna explained. “We encourage and support them, but we remind them that not everyone is as fortunate as they are.” Ben and Joanna remain as active as their children. In addition to antiques, Ben enjoys hunting, water skiing and scuba diving. Joanna also enjoys outdoor activities and marathoning, and she has recently embraced her artistic side through oil painting. The Boynton family currently resides on an estate in Loxahatchee’s Fox Trail neighborhood, which is zoned for livestock.
“We have a herd of Herefords,” Ben explained. “We take them up to Ocala.” Herefords are a breed of beef cattle that originated in the United Kingdom in the county of Herefordshire and were first imported to the United States in 1817 by Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky. Over the years, both Ben and Joanna have been very active in the community with service on numerous boards. Ben is a trustee of the Central Palm Beach County Chamber of Commerce, chair of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County and chair of the Wellington Regional Medical Center Board of Governors. Joanna is on the board of the Wellington Community Foundation. In this capacity, they have been involved in many community events and charitable functions, with the goal of enhancing the Wellington community and Palm Beach County as a whole. wellington the magazine | november 2018
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