Two decades of disciplined, fee-only fiduciary work for Bay Area households.

I found my passion early.

In middle school, my dad sat me down with the financial pages of the newspaper and taught me how to analyze a company. He entered me in a stock trading competition. I was almost certainly the youngest participant. I learned what it felt like to study a business carefully, take a position, and watch the market deliver its verdict — sometimes humbling, sometimes affirming, always instructive. I was hooked.

By high school, I had pursued and won an internship at Merrill Lynch. Through college I worked at mutual fund and investment companies, learning the business from the inside before most of my peers had decided what they wanted to do. After graduation, my investment work led me to Edward Jones Investments, helping individuals and businesses invest their capital.

The work was a privilege. But over time, I came to believe that commission-based compensation could pull an advisor's interests away from the client's. I stepped into a business-side role, supporting advisors and money managers on asset allocation, while I worked through what kind of practice I actually wanted to build.

During those years, many of the people I had served earlier in my career began reaching out again, asking for second opinions and for someone who would think through the whole picture. They weren't looking for products. They were looking for clarity.

When I learned about the fee-only model, where the advisor is paid by the client rather than through commissions or product payments, it resonated immediately. It removes the conflicts that come with selling products. In 2004, I founded Index Gurus, Inc. to do the work that way.

Twenty-plus years later, what I value most about this work is the variety of situations it involves. I have worked with tech professionals managing concentrated equity positions through volatile markets, and with executives evaluating Net Unrealized Appreciation for highly appreciated employer stock. I have helped doctors and dentists evaluate Defined Benefit plans as a way to increase retirement savings. I have coordinated charitable giving strategies with families' tax and estate plans. I have talked clients through market corrections and helped them revisit their plan rather than react to the headlines. And I have worked with families on gifting strategies as part of their estate planning.

Along the way, I contributed financial domain expertise at technology companies including Intuit and Google. That experience shaped my interest in how durable competitive advantages, such as data, infrastructure, and sustained R&D, influence a company's long-term prospects. That interest now informs the research framework I use in client portfolios.

I also taught CFP® candidates through UC Santa Cruz Extension and UC Berkeley Extension, because the profession needs people who do this work with integrity, and that work has to be passed on. Watching students discover the same interest I found in middle school was one of the most rewarding parts of my career.

The boy who studied stock charts with his father is still here, decades later, still studying the markets and still drawn to the same question: how do you pair disciplined planning with thoughtful investing to help people reach the goals that matter to them? That is the work. I am honored to do it.