Who We Are
We’re more than investment advisors
We’re educators, planners, guides to help our clients navigate their financial journey.
Why Aldrich Wealth?
Whether you are a corporate plan sponsor seeking benefits to retain valuable employees or an individual with complex financial needs, Aldrich Wealth has the depth of resources and expertise to serve you.
Our People
Planning your financial future or choosing the appropriate plan for your employees is more than just another financial transaction, it is a process that requires expertise, experience, and commitment. At Aldrich Wealth, we have carefully selected a team of financial professionals who are dedicated to providing advice to help clients achieve their financial goals.
Our average advisor has over 13 years of experience in wealth management, financial planning, and tax planning. Although each client’s goals are unique, with our decades of experience, there is a good chance that we have helped someone through some of the same complexities for their personal financial life or their corporate retirement plan needs.
Each and every one of our team members is committed to serving you. Whether we are answering questions about your investment portfolio, reviewing a tax strategy, hosting an employee education session, or fiduciary training for corporate retirement plan sponsors, we are here to guide you.
Our professionals hold designations including CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, Chartered Financial Analyst®, Certified Public Accountant, Accredited Investment Fiduciary®, Certified Plan Fiduciary Advisor, Certified Specialist in Estate Planning® and Personal Financial Specialist. Aldrich Wealth has been recognized nationally for its investment knowledge and expertise. Our Chief Investment Officer, Darin Richards, has appeared on CNBC providing commentary on current topics related to the market outlook and investment strategies. In the corporate retirement plan industry, many of our retirement plan consultants were recognized by the National Association of Plan Advisors for their technical expertise. Our professionals are frequent speakers on a variety of topics from financial planning to tax-efficient investing and we are recognized by SHRM to offer Professional Development Credits (PDCs) for SHRM-CP® or SHRM-SCP®.
Our Approach
At Aldrich Wealth, we recognize that investment performance is only one piece of a comprehensive strategy. We take a team-based approach to serving clients. For individuals, we include investment advisors, financial planners, and tax professionals to provide a holistic view of each situation. Individuals who find our services most valuable have complex issues ranging from corporate stock planning to charitable giving to experiencing a challenging life event.
For corporate retirement plan sponsors, we help you select the best retirement plan to meet your company goals, providing investment management, plan design, and recordkeeping selection and, through our team approach, bringing compliance services needed to meet your fiduciary obligations. We have decades of experience creating and managing 401k plans for privately-held businesses of all sizes. With a billion dollars of plan assets under management, clients trust Aldrich Wealth to deliver a plan with investment options to meet the needs of business owners and their employees.
Aldrich Wealth was founded as a Registered Investment Advisor to provide transparency to our clients and to operate at the highest fiduciary standard. As an RIA registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, we are required to maintain a fiduciary standard which means we make recommendations that are in the best interest of our clients. We ensure transparency by disclosing all of our fees upfront.
Our Story
Aldrich Wealth was founded in May of 1998 as an affiliate of Aldrich CPAs + Advisors. It was born out of a recognition that long-time business clients were experiencing liquidity events and weren’t satisfied with the money management options available to them. They came asking for an improved solution to their needs.
Scott Barchus, Doug Davison, and Steve Tatone realized there was an opportunity to extend these long-term relationships, built over years of service, into the next stage of clients’ financial lives. With an entrepreneurial spirit, the support of Aldrich, and a passion for learning the business of money management, Scott and Doug set out to build a wealth management firm. These were the first two employees and founders of what was then called AKT Wealth Advisors.
The challenges, in the beginning, were numerous and complex. They had no experience and no assets under management and had to navigate the regulatory environment, create infrastructure, establish the process, and define the value proposition. On top of that, they began the business just two years before one of the worst stock market declines in the previous 20 years. Convincing their colleagues at Aldrich and prospective clients to put their faith in them would prove to be a daunting mountain to climb, and at times, test their confidence in their abilities to succeed.
They began the journey by falling back on the guiding principles and foundational tenants that helped build the accounting firm. One of those was the desire to maintain their independence and advocacy for their clients. This forced them to build everything from scratch instead of partnering with many in the industry that approached the firm. While partnering would have been easier, it would have caused them to sacrifice their principles.
Additional core principles they established were driven by other shortcomings that existed in the industry:
- Deliver services clients need instead of selling them something.
- Deliver value to clients beyond portfolio management.
- Build strong relationships and listen to clients.
Recognize and manage risk.
As their first client turned into their second, and their second into their third, and so on, they began to build trust in the people they served which has carried Aldrich Wealth to this point. While this history includes many successes and some failures, it has always been driven by a collective passion to serve clients, a continuous desire to learn and improve the business, a reliance to act and operate on core principles, and an amazing group of professionals who have been attracted to the entrepreneurial spirit and culture that has defined Aldrich Wealth since the beginning—and still defines the business today.
While this brief story describes the start of the journey, there are many more stories of amazing contributions by special people that make up the fabric of who Aldrich Wealth is today—humbled by the hundreds of clients who continue to put their trust and faith in Aldrich Wealth and are committed to continuing to build a premier wealth management firm long into the future.
