Chris Rivers, CFP®

President’s Message

As January turns to March here in the National Capital Area, temperatures have turned bitterly cold outside, while elsewhere markets have warmed up to start the year.  In our chapter, we enter February hot on the heels of another fantastic winter symposium on January 21^st.

The program was packed with content aimed at improving client communication and elevating your practice.  In addition, we presented awards to two of our Outstanding Award recipients, Dan Lash, winner of the Norma Severns Award for Leadership and Dick Vodra, winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award.  Both awards were well deserved and a long time coming.

Speaking of elevating your practice, on February 15^th we are holding our sixth annual Career Fair. This has been one of our most exciting new initiatives in recent years, connecting new grads and career changers with a strong pool of local firms and advisors looking to hire and train the next generation.

Interviews and roundtable discussions take place all morning into early afternoon. Then at 3pm, we are thrilled to have Karen Schaeffer as our keynote speaker.  In case you missed it, Karen recently received the Alexandra Armstrong Award for Lifetime Achievement in Financial Planning, from InvestmentNews.  More on that here.

On March 15^th at Bethesda Country Club, we’ll have Ben Lewis, FPA’s Director of Public Relations, presenting Media Training. That same day retired FBI agent Jeff Lanza will speak to us about preventing cybercrime and identity theft, in what is sure to be a timely and entertaining presentation. 

 

May 2nd is our annual charity golf tournament at 1757 Golf Club, the proceeds of which primarily benefit the Foundation for Financial Planning, and its mission to provide pro bono financial advice to those in need. This is always a fun day for a worthy cause.

Looking further down the road, mark your calendars now for our Spring Symposium on June 6th. We are working hard to make this one of the best spring symposiums in recent memory. While the full schedule has not been announced yet, I can share that we will have IRA expert Ed Slott as well as InvestmentNews contributing editor Mary Beth Franklin speaking to us that day.  Watch our website and emails for an announcement of the full lineup soon.  

Lastly, I wanted to again thank everyone who came to our listening tour visit with FPA national’s representatives, regarding the new OneFPA initiative.  It was a successful day and our chapter’s voice was heard thanks to 30 plus members who took time out of their work day to give feedback to FPA leadership.  We’ll update you here as we know more about any changes to the initiative based on our feedback. In addition, FPA leaders and staff will hold two All-Member Virtual Listening Tour Meetings to share the OneFPA Network vision and draft plan with members and to hear from members on their questions, concerns and ideas. Please register for one of these special meetings on either February 5 or February 7!

Thank you for all that you do to serve your clients and advance our profession. If you have any comments or suggestions about our chapter I would love to hear them. My email is crivers@afmfa.com. 

All the best,

Chris

Chris Rivers, CFP®

2019 FPA NCA President

CRivers@AFMFA.com