I’m excited to welcome Stacy Miller on the podcast today. She is the founder of Bayview Financial Planning, a flat-fee RIA focused on serving women, widows, and military and veteran families. Stacy is a military spouse to a retired U.S. Army officer. Married for over 30-years to her husband, Jody, who served 28-years in the military, Stacy has experienced many positive and negative transitions. She has seen firsthand how those transitions can impact women, widows, and military/veteran families. Together, her military family moved 14 times during their service, and as a result, Stacy was often unemployed or underemployed. She therefore recognizes how important it is for women, especially, to feel confident in their own future financial security.

We chat about her exposure to personal finance as her family CFO holding down the fort during her husband’s long and varied military career. Like most military spouses, Stacy found a way to make it all work and built up an incredible skillset during those years across her varied experiences.

Stacy shares how her initial experiences with financial advisors made her wary of going down that career path before a colleague finally convinced her to join an RIA. While it was a great training ground and opportunity to do lots of things, she felt the pull of real financial planning for families and individuals that was different than the institutional money management that prior firm did.

So, Stacy took the leap into launching her own firm earlier this year and we catch her at the 6 month point where she is fresh in the trenches of marketing and working to get those first 10 clients. I love how she shares about the real reasons why she had to do this for herself and how work and identity plays such a key role for her in this decision. Lastly, she shares some really interesting advice she gives to fellow military spouses also exploring careers in this profession.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacymillercfp/

https://bayviewfp.com/

In this episode, I’m joined by David Evetts, who serves as the President of the USAA Educational Foundation. Since 1986, The USAA Educational Foundation has served the military community by helping service members and their families become informed financial decision-makers through every life stage. USAA, the founder and sponsor of The USAA Educational Foundation, is a San Antonio, Texas-based financial services company that provides auto, homeowners, and life insurance products and, banking and investment services. While USAA is the sponsor, The USAA Educational Foundation does not endorse or promote any commercial supplier, products, or services.

Before this current role, David served as the USAA CEO’s chief of staff/aide-de-camp with previous leadership roles in CEO Communications, Corporate Responsibility, External Affairs, and Enterprise Innovation. David joined USAA in 2011 through the Junior Military Officer Career Development Program after serving in the Army.

Over the course of our interview we chat about these roles and more including David’s perspectives on how to balance the dual goals of serving the military community with education or support along with finding ways to have a career. David also shares some particularly relevant advice related to looking for a company that aligns with your values instead of the particulars of the job or even role.

Lastly, we chat about the challenges of shedding the military identity when making a career transition and how to be known as a leader, not just a veteran. There are definitely some pearls of wisdom in there. Here’s my interview with David Evetts.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidevetts/

https://usaaef.org/

I’m excited to welcome a friend and colleague who has a little bit different career track today. Drew Stamp serves as the Chief Operations Office for the Donovan and Bank Foundation - a, nonprofit organization that focuses on helping special operators transition to a life of peace, balance, and contentment.

We chat about Drew’s early personal finance experiences, how he learned he loved to teach and help other with financial literacy, what studying for the CFP exam was like even though he had never worked in a traditional job in financial planning before, and how he found his way to his current role. If you are interested in financial literacy and education, you might find some of his answers surprising.

With his wide range of experiences, Drew shares some incredibly practical advice born out of personal experience and the hundreds of briefings and thousands of hours of conversation. We could all benefit from his advice on how to better deliver financial education as well as advice!

Drew has the benefit of looking back over his many years of transition counseling and shares the common themes he sees including how important it is to have your own financial house in order and be prepared for the emotional, mental, and identity challenges that come with leaving the military experience.

Lastly, we chat about the changes and perceptions of current military members, if BRS has changed things from where Drew sees it, and what it means to work with the military population as they approach their career transitions. So here’s my interview with Drew Stamp.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-stamp/

https://www.donovanbank.org/