Clients, it’s Caitie here. I’m so thrilled to introduce you to our newest teammate, Allison Bauers! In a small business, we tend to wear many hats, so this week, we’re chatting about how our roles and duties will change in the coming months.
Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.
Clients, you may have already spotted the new face or heard the new voice around the office. Let us take a moment to get everyone up to speed on some exciting developments.
You may remember that our dear friend Larry Wiederspan “retired” a couple years ago, but it didn’t stick. Then, the time came for certain: his last day in our employment came and went in April. While we miss seeing Larry so regularly, his retirement brought us a new opportunity. (Life’s all about beginnings and endings, isn’t it?)
With Larry’s departure, we were ready for some help on the Client Services team. Our Client Services Coordinator Whitney Engle has been with us full-time for more than a year now, and she’s been on top of everything we’ve been able to throw to her—and then some! She’s so proactive. And Client Services Associate Patsy Havenridge has been holding down the front office with grace and good humor since 2018. Where does the time go?
And now, joining as our newest Client Services Associate, we’re pleased to introduce Brenda Smith!
Brenda brings years of experience in financial services and administrative support, and we were so pleased to discover that her skills were a match for our needs. Her warm personality and easy-going spirit were evident from our first encounters.
Brenda is a Louisville native, and her son Isaac is a third-generation LHS student. When she’s not in the office at 228 Main, she enjoys traveling, reading, cooking, and spending time with friends and family. “I have a group of lifelong friends who still refer to ourselves as ‘the Louisville Girls,’ and we try to get together at least once a month to catch up,” Brenda says. “I’m a history nerd and can be found watching historical documentaries and historical shows and movies when I’m at home.”
Brenda may be the latest addition to the 228 Main team, but she is already caught up on the “history” of our work here. The mission is the same for the whole team: we strive to grow your buckets. And that project takes all of us, from research and trading to paperwork and communications—it happens when all of us are ready to be of service to each other.
Come in and say hello whenever you have a chance. Welcome, Brenda!
Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.
Play the audio version of this post below:
You know her name from emails; maybe you’ve even had the pleasure of speaking with her on the phone. You may remember us announcing her arrival on the team just over one year ago, when she was lending us her talents part-time via LPL Financial’s Administrative Solutions program.
Today, we’re proud to announce that Whitney Engle of Floris, Iowa, is joining our team full-time! We are employing her directly as she continues to work remotely.
Whitney will serve as our new Client Services Coordinator, continuing to work closely with Larry and Patsy on the service team and also supporting the management team of Mark, Greg, Billy, and Caitie with their various duties in research, portfolio management, and communications.
We have staffed up from time to time in recent years to continue taking care of the business. This latest expansion will have a few important benefits: now that we are an SEC-facing organization, it’s more important than ever that we stay efficient in our processes and systems.
Having another team member onboard full-time also means one more friendly face is at the ready, getting you what you need, when you need it.
“I can’t wait to spend more time getting to know clients,” Whitney said. “They are the reason we’re here.”
As we’ve gotten to know her across these months, we’ve felt so fortunate. Whitney’s skills will continue to grow in her new role of course, but she has already shown many of those qualities that are tough to teach: enthusiasm, curiosity, tenacity.
Not only does she take pride in her work, Whitney is someone who clearly cares so deeply about her family—and the menagerie of animals they keep at home! Her proactive approach to things will no doubt continue to improve the experience for all of us and for all of you.
For the months and years ahead, we know that people are key to helping us help you. So, we hope you’ll help us offer a(nother) hearty welcome to Whitney! Thanks for being with us.
Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.
Play the audio version of this post below:
Converse, communicate, babble, blather, rant, rave… I love to talk! Preaching to the choir, but it’s worth reminding everyone: I’m here to do this. By choice. More in this aptly-titled video.
Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.
Coincidence, good timing, good fortune… Whatever you call it, something wonderful happened to bring Larry Wiederspan into my life and later into our shop. Clients, three cheers for Larry as he closes a chapter working here at 228 Main.
Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.
It’s the way events might occur by chance, to our happiness or benefit.
It’s coincidence.
It’s good luck.
And maybe sometimes it’s providence. All of these could define the word “serendipity.” And all describe my long association with Larry Wiederspan.
I met Larry in one of my earliest incarnations in business, as a life insurance agent working with country banks and bankers. The owners of a small chain of banks asked me to go out west to see one of their branch office managers at a location 200 miles away, in the middle of Nebraska, to implement a benefit plan.
We hit it off. I ended up making return trips to work with Larry and even his wife Marilyn on their own plans and planning. As my skills and services evolved, they came along with me.
Over the years, some of Larry’s strengths came to the surface: integrity, diligence, good faith, attention to detail, and friendliness. Then serendipity struck about ten years ago, when I learned that they were thinking about a move to my neighborhood after Marilyn’s retirement. His characteristics and traits were something that our shop needed, and he was about to join the neighborhood.
At the time, increasing regulatory requirements meant that files needed updating and business processes became more cumbersome—precisely when family health issues took me out of the shop for weeks at a time. I could easily have been that person who had a great business until… illness befell the family.
Larry retired from his banking career, a higher-stress and longer-hours endeavor than the more relaxed pace of the position we created for him at 228 Main. Larry and Marilyn moved closer to their grandchildren. It was a big win for everyone.
Clients, you and we obtained the benefits of knowing and working with Larry. We’ve enjoyed Larry’s association for longer than we expected we’d get, as he enjoyed his work too.
But he tells us the time has come for more retirement-type activities and less work. We’ll soon be short the regular company of this conscientious and pleasant fellow who means so much to us. We are still here in part because he was here for us.
My gratitude will never repay the debt I owe Larry.
There is some chance a special project or circumstance may bring him back for a spell, but at this time it would be appropriate for you to join me in thanking Larry for his many years of service here, if you are so moved.
In the meantime, clients, we’ll still be taking care of business—and we’re learning how to do that without Larry’s help. Call or email us about anything you might need.
Cheers, Larry!
Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.
Play the audio version of this post below:
The team at 228Main.com is growing! You might get to see a new face or hear a new voice, courtesy of our partners at LPL. Let me introduce our latest client services teammate.
Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.
One of the blessings of our enterprise is the way it grows, by word of mouth. One friend helps another by introducing them to us, or putting them on our email newsletter list, or forwarding a blog post. When we focus on growing your buckets and meeting your needs, our needs get met.
Growth brings challenges, of course. We have staffed up from time to time in recent years to continue taking care of the business. Now we are embarking on a new and more flexible arrangement. A few benefits to our latest expansion:
With that in mind, we want to welcome the newest member of our team. Whitney Engle comes to us by way of LPL Financial’s Administrative Solutions program. She is a full-time LPL employee, well-versed in all the systems and processes. She now works with us from afar, though the distance is no obstacle. Phones and email help bring us together; it’s one thing I learned with all of you in the last chapter of life.
I believe the core activities of our enterprise are investment research, portfolio management, and talking to you. But nothing happens until the details are handled, and they are crucial. So Whitney is joining a client services team—along with Patsy Havenridge and Larry Wiederspan—that plays a vital role.
We’re grateful for Larry’s long service; hard to believe it goes back eight years! And Patsy, four years in, has been a joy to have in the shop. With Whitney’s help, we are better equipped than ever to take care of business.
Whitney will assist us with paperwork and logistics: it’s the work we may need to create new accounts, monitor requests, interface with mutual fund companies, guide us through home office processes, and help with a variety of other tasks.
When she’s not hard at work, Whitney tells us she enjoys spending time with her two boys, taking care of a menagerie of animals at home, and cruising the country roads on a skateboard.
Another friendly face joins the team, and we are glad to have access to a talent like Whitney through our partners at LPL. We’re looking forward to an arrangement that’s good for you and good for us. For the months and years ahead, staffing is key to helping us help you. So we’d like to offer a hearty welcome to Whitney!
Clients, when we need to chat about anything, be sure to reach out—anytime.
Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.
Play the audio version of this post below:
Clients, I’m one of a kind. I’ve worked many years and traveled many paths to be the person I am today.
Even though I’m the one and only Mark Leibman, I get to do what I do as part of an amazing team at 228 Main. I notice this truth now more than ever.
The enterprise has three core activities:
I sometimes say I am in business to talk all day, but as you can see from these notes, it takes the whole team to make that possible.
Four of us here in the shop contribute to our communications. Three of us collaborate on investment research and analyze portfolios. Two focus on logistics and paperwork, taking care of details.
While I spend the most time with you, Caitie Leibman directs our communications, which really is just another way to talk to you, with contributions from Greg Leibman, and Billy Garver, and me. Greg, Billy, and I work on research and portfolios. And Patsy Havenridge and Larry Wiederspan take care of service—the paperwork and logistics.
The buck stops with me, of course: I take responsibility for investment decisions and trading and recommendations and everything, but I could never accomplish by myself the things we are able to do as a team. We are working with more than $100 million for clients in twenty states.
I’ve often said that if there were three of me, we’d all be busy. But the world does not need any more copies of me. Every member of the 228 Main team knows that the better off you are, the better off we will be—and they each contribute skills and abilities I don’t have.
I couldn’t be more proud of them.
Clients, is there anything for which you could use our team’s perspective? Call or write, anytime.
Want content like this in your inbox each week? Leave your email here.
Play the audio version of this post below:
You must be logged in to post a comment.