Retirement Education

Meet Michael LaBrie, Thomas Nee, Martin Plecinoga, Emily Hodgkinson & Kate Glidden

• Michael J. LaBrie, AAMS, CFS
  Investment Advisor Representative, Registered Principal
  Mike is a registered representative with National Planning Corporation. He is an Accredited Asset Management Specialist with the National Endowment for Financial Education, a Certified Fund Specialist and a member of the International Association of Financial Planning.
  
  Mike LaBrie is considering his company’s unique position in the financial marketplace. “Many Other financial companies are product focused, we focus on the whole picture".
  
  Mike is a systems man. He sees his function at Compass Point as triple-focused. In addition to his role of investment advisor, he is concerned with owner issues and with business development. This span of tasks demands a system of compartmentalization that Mike calls a “calendar process”. While three-quarters of his time in any given month, is devoted to client meetings and client issues, his staff is careful to schedule time for a process that Mike calls business development—a period of intense focus on research and on developing new processes.
  
  Mike thinks of this process as “intentional growth”. And he is quick to praise the staff members for their role in this effort. “When people are given the freedom to do what they do well, then you see work of superior quality. Efficiencies are enhanced and overall quality improves. You’ve got to trust people,” he points out, “to do what they do well.”
  
  The staff-to-advisor ratio at Compass Point is unusually high. This is a point of pride for Mike who sees strong client benefits from this arrangement. He explains that the company’s principals are willing to accept smaller profit margins per client in order to build a better client services operation.
  
  To keep up-to-date on the complex and fast-changing issues in the financial field, Mike has a system for regularly visiting special informational web sites, both public and subscription. “The basics always stay the same,” he says. “But there are constant changes that come through tax laws and compliance issues—things like that.” Mike meets frequently with representatives of financial firms that offer new products and he studies their offerings with keen interest. He also attends at least four to six due diligence conferences and meetings each year.
  
  Mike has a passion for trying to teach his clients the basics of financial management and has endless patience for the tasks. He believes that an educated client is better prepared to handle the inevitable economic downturns and is less inclined to giddy euphoria when the market is surging.
  
  “I want my clients to understand the difference between price and value,” he says. “I would like them to understand the basics of the asset allocation process. And I’d like to them to appreciate something about costs.”
  
  Mike came to the financial field from a technical background. He was putting his EE degree to work in industry when his cousin Tom Nee persuaded him to become a stock broker.
  
  “But Tom and I wanted to build something we could be proud of,” he says. “We were starting our families and we decided to set the goal of building something in business that was worthwhile—something self-sustaining and far different from a speculative business.”
  
  And so Compass Point Retirement Planning, Inc. turned from dream to reality.
  
  Acknowledging that Compass Point has quadrupled in size, both in terms of client base and staff, Mike explains how this growth benefits present clients. Economies of scale allow the company to offer better products and lower the costs of operation per client. Moreover, when the staff wears fewer hats per head, they better achieve what Mike calls “purity of function”, and that results in benefits to the client.
  
  Mike, a native of Salem, Massachusetts, has never lived far from the sea. Home is now Marblehead; family is his wife Sue and sons Matt, Mitchell, and Marin.
  
  If he weren’t dedicated to his Compass Point desk, what could Mike see himself doing? Sailing, of course. But Mike says that he has also become a sports fan. “My friends and neighbors have shown me the game within the game.”
  
  “But if I were to switch roles entirely, I’d like to be a luthier,” he says. “I’d build arch-top acoustic guitars. I’m fascinated with the function of the guitar—with its technical elements—and with the wood itself.”
  
  Favorite guitar players? Charlie Farren. Johnny A.
  
  “And maybe some day,” he adds, “I’d like to see more of the world.”

• Thomas F. Nee, Jr.
  Investment Advisor Representative, Registered Principal
  Tom earned his bachelor’s degree from Merrimack College. He became securities licensed in 1990 upon obtaining his Series 7 (Uniform Securities Agent State Law), Series 63, and Series 65 (FINRA Uniform Investment Advisor) licenses.
  
  Balance. Whether he is engineering a portfolio for a client or adjusting his personal schedule, balance is an integral part of Tom Nee’s outlook. It is important to Tom, as to all Compass Point financial advisors, that clients’ matters are balanced. That’s why he looks at more than an individual’s investments. He wants to know what his clients do in their leisure time, what hobbies are important to them, what restores them, and what makes them happy. Only with these answers can Tom design the financial plan that best meets their needs and goals.
  
  “I have a motto,” Tom says. “Balance between work, family, leisure.”
  
  To fulfill his motto and keep things balanced in the office, Tom has learned to delegate.
  
  “Paperwork and follow up are two areas where I rely on staff members who are skilled at doing these things.” This is efficient functioning, Tom feels. “We have created a company here that almost runs on its own. I am just a part of the process.”
  
  Tom Nee is one of the founders of Compass Point. As a young stock broker not long out of Merrimack College, Tom found himself at odds with the way he had to deal with clients and securities. He envisioned something better, so he and his cousin Mike LaBrie decided to leave stock brokering and found a financial planning business.
  
  Asked to consider his original vision for Compass Point, Tom recalls that he and Mike wanted to build a company that would help people deal with “their important money—the nest egg money—not the speculative stuff.”
  
  And the vision for the future? Tom believes the original idea still rings true—it has just expanded.
  
  “We seek to keep our clients, and to do that, we have to maintain a high level of service.”
  
  The people at Compass Point constantly explore new ways to build the client base while improving services to existing clients. Establishing an office in Manchester to more conveniently serve New Hampshire clients is one such example. Another is the Goal Cultivators Club to which Tom and Mike belong. This is a group of financial advisors who get together every six months to exchange ideas; each member sets his top six goals for the next year, and these goals are reviewed at each meeting. “Goals,” Tom observes, “lead to new goals.”
  
  One of his goals is to balance his professional life with family time. In Boxford, where Tom lives with his wife Ellen and their three sons Ryan, Connor, and Tucker Tom serves as a First Responder with the volunteer fire department. Emergency calls may pull him out of bed several nights a week, but he doesn’t find this activity draining. Rather, he sees it as another way to give to people—a way to make life a richer, safer place. “Helping someone, whether you’re helping medically or getting their financial house in order, is a peculiar honor,” Tom says.
  
  That feeling also applies when Tom leads a Compass Point educational seminar. At the end of a tightly-scheduled block of time—perhaps a two-day business trip to Vermont that culminates in a seminar—he says he finds a feeling of accomplishment that is deeply satisfying.
  
  As a financial advisor, Tom feels it is necessary to be able to speak with clients in a straight-forward style. He meets clients at their own levels of understanding and works respectfully with them until they understand what they need to know about the market and their own participation in it.
  
  “I wish my clients would “take a stronger position to learn how their financial plans work.” Tom says. “And I want my staff would take care of our clients as they would their own families”
  
  Is Compass Point Unique?
  
  “Absolutely! We all work toward one common goal—serving clients. Ninety-percent of financial planners are good at heart,” Tom says, “but they lack something that is working. Here at Compass Point we have a balanced process.

• Martin E. Plecinoga, CFS, ChFP
  Investment Advisor Representative, Registered Representative
  Martin is a Registered Representative with National Planning Corporation, and a Certified Fund Specialist. He received a Bachelor of Science from Salem State College and has since obtained his Series 7 (General Securities Representative), Series 63 (NASD Uniform Securities Agent State Law) and the Series 65 (FINRA Uniform Investment Advisor) licenses.
  
  “Client-centric” is how Martin Plecinoga describes the unique focus of Compass Point Retirement Planning, Inc. “We’ve built a structure that puts the client first; then we do everything possible to support that proposition. This means that we try to understand what each of us does well, and we work to enhance that. We feel the result benefits our clients
  
  Martin, like his Compass Point counterparts, faces the constant challenge of keeping his knowledge current and his skills well honed.
  
  “A lot of sky miles,” is how he summarizes the on-going education of a financial advisor. As well as meeting with clients and preparing their financial plans, Martin does his share of educational lectures and client development. With the other principals, he participates in the Goal Cultivator Community, a think tank that encourages members to set goals and then holds them accountable for those goals. This, Martin feels, keeps him both focused and challenged.
  
  Martin brings an unusual background to the financial business. His degree from Salem State College is in geography with a concentration in environmental issues. After graduation, however, he found himself inspecting construction specifications for construction firm. “My job was to make sure that the product matched the specs,” he says now. “I was making an impressive salary, but I wasn’t happy. I’d grown up with Tom Nee and Mike LaBrie, and when they invited me to join the firm, I jumped at the chance to restructure my career.”
  
  Early on, Martin understood what he wanted to contribute at Compass Point. “To provide clear client services,” he says. “I wanted to meet people where they were and to provide communication that was open.”
  
  He compares his approach to financial planning to the diagnostic procedure of a physician. “I try to uncover the important issues that each client has—and sometimes a client isn’t even aware of areas where there are questions. That point of discovery is the springboard for education. We move out from there, and only with the answers to those questions can we begin to build a plan that fits the individual.”
  
  Martin works on integrating the full panoply of his clients’ needs, goals and dreams into each financial plan. He sees his service as “holistic”. A financial plan, in Martin’s view, is not an isolated document; it is one critical element in a comprehensive life plan.
  
  Other financial planning firms tend to offer cookie-cutter fixes rather than benefits, Martin believes, and if he had a single wish for his clients it would be “that they live a worry-free, good life.” He views the Compass Point staff as “excellent technicians” who implement this goal, and he is generous in crediting them for a share of the company’s success.
  
  Home for Martin, his wife Amanda, son Luke, and daughter Grace is Beverly, Massachusetts, not far from Martin’s native Salem. “With four boys to raise, money was tight, but my dad built a thirty-two foot slop in the backyard so he could take his boys sailing.”
  
  Martin respects the model of family values that his parents provided, and he says if weren’t a full-time Compass Point financial advisor, he could see himself teaching kids how to sail. But for now, Martin Plecinoga recharges his batteries by spending time with his wife, children and extended family.
  
  “At home—just like in the office—we trust in the system … and then we do the best we can.”

• Emily Hodgkinson
  Client Relations
  When an invitation to a Compass Point event goes into the mail, you can be sure Emily Hodgkinson has been at work. It is her job to coordinate new client seminars—everything from procuring lists to arranging for brochures to securing and setting up seminar sites. At the seminars themselves, Emily is probably the first point of contact for prospective Compass Point clients.
  
  Coordination of retirement education workshops falls to Emily too, and she is skilled at making arrangements where clients feel welcome and comfortable.
  
  “Planning skills are my strength,” she says frankly. In a company like Compass Point, where structure and planning are so highly valued, she has created a valuable niche.
  
  Emily earned a Bachelor's of Science degree from Salve Regina University. Her major: Business with a concentration in marketing, Emily always thought she was headed toward a career in the industry of finance and a season at Compass Point confirmed that dream. At the company, her sales skills and ability for easy client contact are put into daily practice.
  
  What’s unique about Compass Point in Emily’s view?
  
  “There is someone available at all times to assist our clients.” Emily Hodgkinson appreciates the part good client service plays in the relationship between clients and financial advisors.

• Kate Glidden
  
  At Compass Point, Kate Glidden is presently on the cusp. An employee since 2001, she handles corporate client marketing, focusing primarily on Verizon accounts. While engage in this, Kate has also been studying hard to earn her Series 7 certification which will enable her to be a registered financial advisor. Now, with the Series 7 credit to her name, Kate Glidden is ready for a new phase of her career with Compass Point.
  Kate seems no stranger to job multi-tasking—she’s been honing the skill for years. After completing a college career as a political science major at The University of Vermont, Kate plunged into politics, serving as a political consultant and handling marketing tasks in several exhausting political campaigns.
  Home is Beverly, MA, with a big orange cat named Max. Kate loves live music and is mad for travel. She has spent much time abroad, including a year living in Prague Czech Republic. One of Kate’s goals is to see all seven continents before she turns forty—and then to do it all over again.