My Portfolio

    Like a slow-motion train wreck, with nary a whimper or a scream, the extended family and all the benefits it provides are disappearing one ‘byte’ at a time.     The typical American family has changed over the last couple of generations from predominantly ‘extended families’ to majority ‘nuclear families’....

OPPORTUNITY LOST AND FOUND     The financial planning and services industries are at a crossroads and never before has the future been less certain for Advisors. Eroding trust is one of many challenges that make it all the more difficult for Advisors to gain assets under management and maintain control....

Consider this: Allianz Life® commissioned the American Legacies Study designed to be the most comprehensive examination of intergenerational wealth transfer dynamics ever undertaken. It was undertaken to better understand the emotional and financial impact of wealth transfer of an unprecedented magnitude on American families. While no one can definitively predict the...

The date was July of 1978. I had graduated college 6 months earlier and got offered a job in Saudi Arabia. At the time the only thing I knew of the country was that it was somewhere in the middle east and I had seen the movie of Lawrence of Arabia. Nonetheless...

The following may be little more than a rant,,,,but I wonder where we will be in the coming years? The growing popularity of things like Twitter and Texting which necessarily limit messages to extremely short blasts could have a detrimental effect on the growth of knowledge and understanding. The great lessons in...

Girl Scouts and Volunteerism   The Girl Scouts of America turns 100 years old this year. In their history they have come to represent the fabric of our society. Juliette "Daisy" Gordon Low assembled 18 girls from Savannah, Georgia, on March 12, 1912, for a local Girl Scout meeting. She believed...

The Oreo Cookie turned 100 years old today! I cannot at this moment think of any other icon of American Culinary Achievement that outstrips the familiarity of this cookie. Surely as it was for me, it was for others an integral part of my childhood. I even adopted a ritual for...

  Defining Moments       Since becoming a StoryKeeper I’ve found something. Every one of us has defining moments in our life, an event or experiences of such physical or emotional intensity that it has a profound impact on the nature and direction of our life.       Moments such as...

My daughter Jamie has had a passion for dance that outlasted all her friends who started with her. Now, as she has just graduated High School she is starting to see her future and the road she needs to follow in pursuit of her dream. This video is of a number...

For the most part my family ancestry is a mystery to me. Having missed the opportunity to ask my father about his side of the family and then also having missed the chance to later ask my mother, I found myself feeling lost and unable to tell my own daughter much...

My first ever purchase of a record was the 45 rpm of Ruby Tuesday by the Rolling Stones. I must have played it 100 times the first night and wrote down the lyrics. I even went so far as to compose my own lyrics of a song. At this time I...

KURTIS THE STOCK BOY AND BRENDA THE CHECKOUT GIRL    In a supermarket, Kurtis the stock boy, was busily working when a new  voice came over the loud speaker asking for a carry out at register 4.  Kurtis was almost finished, and wanted to get some fresh air, and  decided to...

Since becoming a StoryKeeper I’ve notice something that keeps coming to my attention. Every one of us has defining moments in our life, an event or experience of such physical or emotional intensity that it has a profound impact on the nature and direction of our life.        Moments...

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a...

Thank you very much. Chancellor Kohl, Governing Mayor Diepgen , ladies and gentlemen: Twenty four years ago, President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin , speaking to the people of this city and the world at the city hall. Well, since then two other presidents have come, each in his turn, to...