25 Days of RDFA
Day One
It's hard for me to believe, but we will soon be celebrating the 25th anniversary of our opening the doors of Ritter Daniher Financial Advisory. To commemorate this, I'll be sending an email once a day over the next 25 days highlighting something from our history. All of us at RDFA hope you enjoy this retrospective!
For this first email, we'll simply start with the new logo that we'll be temporarily using.
We hope you enjoy this 25 day retrospective of our first 25 years. We'll be back with our normal content (Monday Morning Missive and RDFA Release) after our July 23rd anniversary.
Day Two
For the second post of the "25 Days of RDFA" I'd like to highlight the best decision we ever made as a company, and that was adding our first employee on July 1, 2000. We have been exceptionally fortunate to share nearly this entire journey with Ronda Koehler. She's been an invaluable part of our team, and we truly couldn't have done it without her.
Ronda started in an administrative role with the firm, but we all quickly realized she would be a fantastic financial planner. We suggested she take the first stage of the CFP education track just to broaden her knowledge. After she passed it we suggested she take the second stage to increase her investments acumen. After sailing through that one we said "Well, you're 40% through the overall coursework - you might as well do the whole thing!"
She earned the CFP designation in 2005.
Day Three
Here's our first company brochure from back in 2001.
Jeff with the first touches of grey hair, and me without any grey! Man, how times have changed.....
Day Four
For day 4 of the "25 Days of RDFA" I'll remind folks that we've been in four different office locations since our founding. We started in a SMALL office on State Road and were there from 1999-2004. We then moved to the next building up the hillside and were there from 2004-2012.
We made our only venture outside of Anderson Township with our move to Columbia/Tusculum in 2012. We were then fortunate enough to be able to move to our current office location, back in Anderson, in April of 2018.
As I think back about the offices, one story comes to mind. I was at the airport heading off to a meeting, and called back to the office. All I got was a frantic voice on the other end saying "Can't talk! There's water everywhere!" While getting new carpet installed, the installer hit a pipe with the tack strip and water came flooding in. Keep in mind, we were in the unit above an eye doctor, so gravity took over and water started running into his office. And right onto one of his exam machines...
Thank goodness for insurance.
Day Five
Many may not know that we have done A LOT of public speaking at conferences through the years. One of the more impactful presentations we ever gave was at the TD Ameritrade National Conference in 2006. We actually followed a keynote presentation by George H.W. Bush, which made for large shoes to fill. You'll have to ask us about being accosted by a Secret Service Agent as we left the President's presentation to race to our breakout room...unbeknownst to us, a reporter from Investment News was in the audience and highlighted our presentation. You can read the piece by clicking on this link: Investment News
Day Six
First, I hope you are having a wonderful 4th of July holiday.
For day 6 of our company retrospective, I wanted to mention the professional association that we've spent a great deal of time in. The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) is the leading association of Fee-Only financial advisors in the country.
We've volunteered within NAPFA in many capacities. I've been on the National Board (2009-2012), chaired the Public Policy Committee (2011-2013) and have remained on the committee since then, and have been the head of the Ethics Committee since 2015. Jeff was a faculty member of the NAPFA University School of Estate Planning from 2007-2014, has been on the Compensation Committee since 2015, and recently started a term on the NAPFA Midwest Board of Directors.
NAPFA has been our professional "home" since we joined in 2003, and continues to be very important to us.
Day Seven
This will always go down as one of the most unforgettable moments for our company. After winning the Greater Cincinnati BBB Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics in 2006, we were encouraged to apply for the International Torch Awards. Being Fee-Only and a Fiduciary was very much in its infancy, and our message was being heard as a better alternative to the commission-based advisors that were the norm. But come on, the International Torch Awards?
Well, sometimes you have to take the chance and see what happens. The result was being one of two firms selected in 2008, with the other being CarMax. I still laugh over the fact that they had 5000 employees, and our head count had just increased to 5!
I can tell you that we never dreamt of receiving an award at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Nor did we think we would be having a cocktail with Tim Russert and Senator Sam Brownback. Surreal is probably the best word to describe that evening. You can see a bit about the evening here: 2008 International Torch Awards
Day Eight
We are now up to 2008 in our "25 Days of RDFA" retrospective, and likely a fact that you didn't know about our firm. John, Jeff and Ronda Co-Chaired the 2008 NAPFA National Conference in Long Beach, CA. That meant we were responsible for securing all of the educational content for the three day event.
One of the keynote presenters that we brought in was Sir Ken Robinson, and he delivered one of the single best presentations I've ever seen. He was a speaker and international advisor on education in the arts, and focused his presentation on bringing creativity back to our jobs.
When you have about 12 minutes to spare, I'd encourage you to watch this animated presentation from Sir Ken, which is titled Changing Education Paradigms
Day Nine
When you've been in the financial business for 25 years, you've lived through some stock market ups and downs. But I'm not sure we will ever forget the Great Recession, and the market downturn in late 2008. From peak to trough, the market went down just over 50%. Lehman Brothers failed. The housing market crashed. And capitalism was seriously being called into question.
I'll never forget one client saying he wouldn't live long enough to ever recover from the losses (on paper) from that downturn. He's still a client to this day, and we have talked about how the market is SIGNIFICANTLY higher today. It's just hard to have faith when you are in the middle of those moments.
Little known fact: The low trade on the S&P 500 at the bottom of the market in March of 2009 was $666. The mark of the devil. We all should have known that was the bottom, right?!?
Day Ten
In 2010 we completed the first of two mergers of firms into Ritter Daniher. Greg Busch merged his firm, Clarus Financial, into ours at the beginning of the year. Greg remained with us until his retirement at the end of 2018, and was a huge part of our team.
One of the best byproducts of this merger was that Lori Smith joined us at that time, and is still with us today. She is both our Operations Manager and a Financial Paraplanner working with many of our clients. It's hard to believe that she's been with us for more than 14 years!
Day Eleven
We've been fortunate to have some cool opportunities to be quoted in publications through the years. We've appeared multiple times in magazines such as Financial Advisor, Financial Planning, Investment News and the Business Courier. One of my all time favorites is when I had the good fortune to fly to New York City for an in-person interview with the Wall Street Journal. You can find the whole article here: WSJ 2010
Prior to the interview, I was able to have dinner and catch a Broadway show with my colleague, Cheryl Holland. We saw the Green Day musical American Idiot, and it was 90 minutes with no intermission. Cheryl remarked afterwards that I leaned forward during the first song and never moved the whole time. That show remains in my top five of any musical performances I've seen.
Day Twelve
For this 12th edition of "25 Days of RDFA" we've reached 2012, which we should call our year of growth. In January, Lora Anstaett joined us. Leanne Bernard followed in July. And Michele Daniher came on board in August.
Late in the year we merged in our second firm, Yerkes Financial, and saw our head count go up by two with Matt Yerkes and Michele Heckle. Matt retired the next year, but Michele is still with us and coming up on her 12th anniversary with the firm.
Lora is now in the CFP program and hopes to gain the designation in 2025. Michele Heckle is a Financial Paraplanner and works very closely with Jeff Daniher. Michele Daniher obtained the CFP mark in 2016 and is a lead advisor for many of our clients. Leanne is my "right hand" as our Business and Marketing Manager.
Day Thirteen
Lucky number 13. I'm definitely not a person that suffers from triskaidekaphobia - fear of the number 13. In fact, 13 is a very lucky and present number in our family.
For this 13th edition of "25 Days of RDFA" I wanted to shine a light on something that we have been fighting for most of our 25 years in business. And that is trying to mandate a Fiduciary Standard for all that practice as financial advisors. It should seem obvious that an advisor be legally obligated to put your best interest first in all dealings with you. While it is more common now than it used to be, it still isn't as widespread as it should be.
We have spoken and written about this topic countless times. We've been known to jump up on our soapbox and preach about it, and we've taken some arrows from those on the other side of this debate. Our hope is that one day this industry will be seen as a true, respected profession by all, and we are getting closer and closer all the time.
Here's one such article about this topic: Fight On
Day Fourteen
One of the most fun parts of our job is when we are able to host a client event. Our very first one was a small wine tasting at the former Chateau Pomije in Obryonville. We've done other wine and/or beer tastings, a Graeter's cruise at Tall Stacks, a chili cookoff while watching the Bengals, and a tour of the Cincinnati exhibit at Union Terminal, among others.
Below are pictures from a few of our favorite events. We just had our third Shred-it event last month. The American Sign Museum is one of the hidden gems in town, and clients loved it. The Reds Hall of Fame and Museum was the perfect place for an event, and certainly played to the love of baseball that many of us have.
The final picture below is of Bill Kanengiser, who has performed for us twice. A Grammy winner, and known as one of the USA's top classical guitarists, Bill has graciously agreed to perform for us once again on Friday, October 11th for our 25th Anniversary celebration. We hope you'll be able to attend!
Day Fifteen
I earlier mentioned how we have been very engaged with our professional association through the years. NAPFA, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, has been our professional home since 2003, and we are still quite involved to this day in many capacities.
One personal moment of pride is when I was named to the list of NAPFA's 30 Most Influential Members of the First 30 Years. This likely should have been a company based honor since Jeff and Ronda had also done so much for the organization.
Looking at the cover photo from the announcement, I'm struck by how many of the other recipients are colleagues that I still talk and email with to this day. One of them runs the financial planning degree program at Western Kentucky University, and introduced us to one of our two interns this summer, Kaylie Wise (pictured below).
You can read about the honor here: 30 Most Influential
Day Sixteen
A sincere benefit of being in this business is the opportunity to get involved with non-profit groups that are near and dear to us. We've been able to use our "time, talent and treasure" to assist with multiple groups as they work to fulfill their charitable missions.
Below, you'll see a few of these groups that we are passionate about. Each of them holds a special place with us, and we have been fortunate to be able to work with them.
Day Seventeen
Many of you know that we have long held that anyone who calls themself a financial planner should earn the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation. What you may not know is the level of work that Jeff Daniher has put in to strengthen the quality of the mark and elevate the standards by which CFP certificants operate.
Jeff chairs the CFP Board Standards Resource Commission. He frequently travels to the Board headquarters in Washington, DC and helps create resources for planners to better understand and comply with the CFP Board Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct.
You can read more about this important group within the CFP Board here: Standards Resource Commission
Day Eighteen
In our retrospective journey we are now up to 2020, and none of us knew the major curveball that was about to be thrown at us. COVID altered so many things, and permanently changes the manner in which we work. We rapidly adjusted to new technology, became reliant on video technology like Zoom and collaboration platforms like Teams, and learned how to work within a hybrid structure of days in the office and days working from home.
I recently looked back at the titles of some of our RDFA Release articles during this time frame and saw the following:
Update on Office Location
The Danger of Headline Risk
What Do We Do During Quarantine?
What's Next When We "Re-Emerge"???
R-Naught
The Power of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt)
During these early and confusing months, we had one prevailing thought - we will get through this, together. Being able to communicate often with folks via email and video was part of how we all held it together during such a bizarre time.
Day Nineteen
During the months when quarantine was happening, and when we were experiencing the uncertainty around the rise and fall of cases, one thing was constant in my life. Music. I've always enjoyed music, and certainly have been known to sing at the top of my lungs while in the car. My family can attest to this...
What I found during the pandemic was that music was a way for me to temporarily turn my brain from the fear and stress. It was something that provided a moment in respite in a crazy situation, and I hoped it would do the same for our clients and friends. Looking back on the emails from that time frame, I found A LOT of music clips, and here are some of my favorites.
Separate Ways - Quarantine Version
Daddy Daughter Duet - Bridge Over Troubled Water
Are You Ready For This - Father/Daughter
Hopefully these clips put a smile on your face.
Day Twenty
One last email about changes that we made during COVID. Who would have ever thought of doing a virtual client event? Well, that's where we had to get creative and figure out a way to make it happen. And we actually did a few of them.
Some of you may remember Michele Daniher hosting "RDFA Trivia Night" virtually, and it was a big success. I certainly know which client family I would contact if I'm in a big trivia competition! And you know who you are... :)
We also were able to enjoy a wonderful virtual concert performed by Bill Kanengiser. If you weren't able to see if at the time, you can watch and listen to it here: Bill Kanengiser - Virtual Concert
Day Twenty-One
In June of 2021 we welcomed our most recent hire, Emma Heckle. And in doing so we showed once and for all that we fully embrace nepotism in our firm, as Emma is Michele Heckle's daughter. We also have the following family connections:
Michele Daniher - Jeff's sister in law
Leanne Bernard - My cousin
Brad Ritter - My son, and our second intern this summer
Emma is a Financial Paraplanner, and has also been helping quite a bit with technological and operational projects at RDFA. I've yet to find something that she hasn't been able to tackle, and normally much quicker than I expect.
Day Twenty Two
It has been nearly 3 years since we took on a corporate parent in Bluespring Wealth Partners, and we continue to be very pleased that we did. The added resources and depth have been important to us, as have the relationships formed with the other partner firms across the country.
Here's a podcast that I did with two colleagues for "Bluespring Out Loud" talking about what we were looking for in a partner. You can view it here: Bluespring Out Loud
Day Twenty -Three
One thing that we are very proud of at RDFA is the culture that we have, and the relationships all of our team members share. Outside of Emma, the LEAST tenured person on the team has been with us for nearly 12 years.
All the way back to the beginning when it was just three of us, we would have "RDFA Fun Day" a few times a year. We would shut things down after lunch for a Reds game, Go-Kart racing (resulting in my only broken bone ever...), Putt-Putt, and a host of other things. Recently with a bigger group we've done Union Terminal for the Princess Diana exhibit, Axe Throwing, and a city Segway Tour. We even did a virtual Escape Room during quarantine.
The most recent event was a Game Show Battle Rooms competition where we split into two teams and did contests mimicking Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune and The Price is Right. Pictured below is the whole RDFA crew, but the winners know who we were...
Day Twenty-Four
When you have had a firm like ours for as long as we have, you often have the good fortune of working with multiple generations from the same family. Parents ask if we can help their children, or children ask if we can assist their aging parents. It's a treat when we are able to "plan up, and plan down" since financial planning often involves gifting, inheritance planning, etc.
We now have had multiple situations where are working with the third generation of a family. Some of our earliest clients have passed away, and we now work with both their children and grandchildren. It's amazing when we are able to share stories connecting the generations. In some cases that means sharing the traits and financial successes that literally created the beginnings of what may be generational family wealth.
Day Twenty-Five
We have reached the end of the "25 Days of RDFA", and we hope you have enjoyed this journey through our first quarter century. I have to admit that it has been a lot of fun to reminisce while writing these emails, and to think back on what a great journey it has been.
Most importantly, we want to say THANK YOU to all of our clients, professional colleagues and friends who have been with us along the way. We are honored to be part of the advisory team for so many people, and truly appreciate the trust and confidence that they have placed in us. We look forward to continuing in that role and expanding our team so we can serve additional families as we move into the next 25 years.
