ODWho
Good Day Dear Friends,
It was ten years ago, on March 9, 2009, that the 2008-2009 Recession concluded, and the stock market began its long trek northward to become the longest “bull market” in financial history. This story has been well played out in the media, so I will not elaborate here – but – there is a backstory.
When I graduated from college, one of my first opportunities was with Merrill-Lynch, at the time the leading financial bastion of Wall Street. I was not impressed. I did not think they payed enough for this young, arrogant, smartest person in the room, and the world is my oyster graduate of Old Dominion University…(yeah, I know, ODwho?...and, if it wasn’t for the lady’s basketball team’s national collegiate championships, no one at the time would know of ODU…and those that did thought it was a girl’s school! Until, the unranked ODU men’s basketball team beat the #1 team in the country, the Mark Aquirre led DePaul team of the early 1980’s-but, that’s a tale for a different time). Instead, in my youthful smartness, I took on a position in the auto industry; with its controlled club of UMichigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Harvard, etc., executive graduates who forced twice the amount of performance required from this ODU grad just to be perceived, but, during which time I received a Master’s degree by going to night school at the John’s Hopkins University – which everyone knew of. I learned how to become a change agent in culturally exclusive corporations with Detroit, German, English, and Japanese auto manufacturers. As the corporate life of boardroom political consensus did not allow me to optimize the organization enough to effect real change – I started my own company to do exactly what I wanted to do – affect real, effective, long-lasting corporate change.
I created a vision for a business development, process improvement, market research, and training organization to lead the kind of real change organizations required, but could not do from the political inside…The Pavik Group Inc (TPG).; a company I founded when I had 5 young children, a big California mortgage, and no money. A true “Jerry Maguire” ate bad pizza, and had a nightmare vs. epiphany moment. After successful years running TPG (and 17 years living on the west coast) that saw the company grow from the den in my home to a multi-million $dollar international firm with offices in Nevada (for tax reasons) and California I realized that what I truly wanted was to bring my family back east - to be by my spouse and my families, which were located on the east coast in GA and MD.
So, I shuddered TPG Inc, and moved the family back east – but – now what was a man to do? Remember my early Merrill-Lynch opportunity? Well, this time the broker Edward Jones (EJ) came calling. Out of the blue I received a call from the financial company stating that because of my entrepreneurial background I would be a perfect fit for their financial business. Little did they know, that my original passion was for financial money-management, and that I had only been side tracked by the auto industry, and entrepreneurship. I went through the EJ training process, earned their “Triple Crown Award” for top performance achievement, and landed on the street just in time for the Lehman-Brothers dissolution, and all that followed in 2008-early 2009! The industry talks about financial headwinds, well, this was a never seen since 1929 Cat-5+ hurricane! Counter-intuitively, it could not have been a better time to join the financial industry. As most “brokers” hid from the phone, I was calling these same prospects, and they wanted to talk to (or yell at) somebody. They wanted answers from someone, and I was more than happy to comply. I pounded the pavement, and made things happen to the point that in late February and March 2009, I believed that the recessional tide had turned and made all my clients, and anyone who would listen, aware that now was the time to return to the stock market – to which the vast majority responded that I had been drinking too much! But, those who did take my advice, did exceptionally well.
One of the truism’s in this business is “not to attempt to time the market highs/lows, but, that spending time in the market creates the greatest long-term return” (attached JPM Returns & Avg Investor). I have learned in practice to modify this philosophy over time, but generally, it is as correct today as it was in 2008. At that time EJ was a standard transactional “broker for commission” business; the more transactions the bigger the business model that permeated the financial industry (and whose greed brought on in part the 2008-09 recession). I knew early on that I wanted my clients to receive a fiduciary*, in “their best interests” relationship. So, I left EJ to set-up Pavik Wealth Management Inc, a fiduciary practice set-up for the distinct benefit of placing me as a steward with solutions to each of my client’s individual financial needs. This is the respectful process I have brought every day to my clients for over 10 years now, and since September 24, 2010, incorporated in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the Chesapeake Bay seaside hamlet of Mathews…a county of no street lights. From here I maintain fiduciary relationships with clients from VA to CA.
p.s. look at the attached Tuition Brackets for all the Universities in the NCAA Basketball Championship tournament if you want to know what today’s educational costs may be…and in the #14th position in the South is ODU, and I can assure you it was not $181.5k in tuition when I went there. In fact, the freshman year first semester tuition check I wrote was for $990, and is one reason why I went there.
Have a brilliant and Blessed week!
Warmest regards,
James Anthony Pavik Sr.
President / Chief Wealth and Investment Officer
ChFEBC℠ - Chartered Federal Employee Benefits Consultant
Pavik Wealth Management, Inc.
Historic Foster-Faulkner Building
138 Main Street, Suite 104
Mail: P.O. Box 145
Mathews, Virginia 23109-0145
804.725.3740
Web: http://www.pavikwealth.com/
EMail: James.Pavik@PavikWealth.com
Follow me on Twitter: @PavikWealth
A Fiduciary for Your Financial Future - Strategies for Building & Preserving Wealth
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