A Special Advertising Feature
Century Bank
Van Vanlingen, Karen Genard, Stephanie Blocker. Photo by Elizabeth Gelineau
Since 1903, Century Bank has been a leader in the communities we serve and a top competitor for our customers’ banking needs. Century Bank is proud to serve southeast Mississippi in George and Jackson Counties and southwest Alabama in Mobile County. We are looking forward to expanding into Baldwin County in the first quarter of 2019 with a new location in Fairhope, Alabama. 1–800–841–8350 • centurybank.net
What is your mission?
To achieve above-average growth and profits that are equal to or better than our peers by providing quality service and being equitable to our employees, stockholders and the communities we serve. Century Bank will continue our long-standing tradition of being personal community bankers that provide personal banking services for our customers, along with being technologically advanced enough to attract younger customers while maintaining our existing customer base. We strive to be high tech/high touch. In short, to be the bank of choice in the markets we serve.
What sets your business apart?
At Century Bank we offer a wide variety of services and products that fit the needs of any individual, family or business. From basic accounts for your everyday needs to those that help you earn interest while saving for a rainy day, we have you covered. With loan decisions made locally, we can put you in the fast lane to reaching your goals, whether you are purchasing a new home or automobile, renovating a home, planning the vacation of your dreams or opening your own business. Local decisions and familiar faces — at Century Bank, we take banking personally.
What contributes to your success?
The directors, officers and employees of Century Bank continue to uphold and maintain a legacy of excellent customer service along with being civic-minded in the communities we serve. We invite you to become part of our bank and experience the friendly attitude of our employees as they serve your financial needs with sincere pride in Century Bank and its heritage. After all, it is what we have done since 1903.
How do you make sure that your clients get the best service/results?
At Century Bank, we pride ourselves on extraordinary customer service and making the customers feel welcome the minute they enter any of our locations. Our employees work efficiently and with a helpful attitude to ensure that the service you receive leaves a lasting impression on you.
Passmore Planning Professionals
Passmore Planning Professionals focuses on helping families to accomplish their
immediate and long-term financial goals by creating and implementing individualized, coordinated financial plans. 3662 Dauphin St., Suite 1A • 251–316–3506 • passmoreplanning.com
Why or how did you get into your field?
We entered this field to help people. Our practice began when J. Wilbert Jordan, LLB, CLU, returned from serving in World War II. The practice grew when Wilbert’s son-in-law, W. Scott Passmore, ChFC, CLU, joined in the mid-1970s. Scott’s son, Andrew Passmore, MS, CFP®, joined the family practice in 2008.
What is your mission?
Our goal is to help our clients accomplish their goals by providing order and structure to what is otherwise a fragmented effort.
What sets your business apart?
We have developed a process that coordinates the various financial affairs of a family’s financial life to help accomplish as many of their goals as possible. Each goal affects the others, and you can only split a dollar in so many ways. By coordinating the family’s financial affairs, we believe we offer the opportunity to accomplish as many of their goals as possible.
What contributes to your success?
By focusing on process rather than financial products, we intend to align with our clients’ needs and objectives. While financial products are required to accomplish various goals, we believe that our focus on process helps us to maintain long-term relationships with our clients.
Why coordinated financial planning?
A family’s individual financial strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats drive their ability to accomplish their financial goals. Most families, however, are unable to see the big picture of how these key financial points and their various financial affairs interact. By focusing on these points and the coordination of a family’s financial affairs, we help guide them toward accomplishing their goals and finding financial fulfillment.
Renasant Bank
Mark Fillers is the South Alabama Market President for Renasant Bank, a 114-year-old regional bank headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi. 165 W I-65 Service Road N • 251–930–5950 • renasantbank.com
Why or how did you get into your field?
I got into banking after working for my family’s business for about a year out of college. My wife, Erin, had just completed a bank management program and encouraged me to do the same. I did and became a commercial loan underwriter. I have been blessed with several advancement opportunities in the Mobile area since then and am grateful for my career in banking. I truly enjoy helping people and businesses achieve their financial goals.
What sets your business apart?
At Renasant Bank, we seek to understand then meet the needs of our clients. We provide concierge-like financial services, meeting our clients wherever they are — home, the road, the ball field or the office — to conduct their transactions. This allows us to proactively understand what they need and offers room for personal and meaningful relationships. In this digital age, Renasant understands the need for quickness and ease, especially when conducting a transaction. With products such as Apple Pay and Zelle, it’s easier than ever to send and receive money — all from Renasant’s mobile banking app.
What contributes to your success?
I try to treat people how I would like to be treated.
How has your business grown or changed and where are you going from here?
With the rise of technology, banking looks completely different than it did 10 years ago. At Renasant, we try to meet our clients’ needs regardless of how they want to conduct their financial business — from those who want to write checks, to those who want to pay online, to those who want to pay person-to-person through mobile banking. We will continue to develop quality relationships with people and strive to do the right thing for our clients and employees.
Merrill Lynch
S. Wesley Carpenter is a Senior Vice President, Wealth Management Advisor for THE HARTY CARPENTER GROUP at Merrill Lynch, where he serves a select group of professionals, business owners and retirees. He is also the Resident Director of the Merrill Lynch office in Fairhope and recently was named to the Forbes “America’s Top Next-Generation Wealth Advisors” 2018 and 2017 lists. 601 N Section St. • Fairhope • 251–990–2361 • www.fa.ml.com/thehartycarpentergroup
Why or how did you get into your field?
Since I was a little boy, I have always had an interest in the stock market and just felt it was a great fit with my finance and economics degree. I could not have made a better career choice.
What is your mission?
We help clients achieve financial success by bringing clarity to complex life challenges.
What sets your firm apart?
I would say three things: upfront, unbiased, honest advice; qualifications; experience.
I really believe it is because we put the client first in every situation and we do what we say we are going to do. We take great pride in listening to our clients and working hard to exceed their goals and expectations. I have always had a thirst for knowledge and felt it was important to continue my learning by obtaining a Certified Private Wealth Advisor® designation (CPWA®), a Certified Financial Planner™ (CFP®), a Chartered Financial Consultant® (ChFC®) and a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC®) designations to expand the services I offer to clients. In addition, I hold six securities licenses, an Alabama Insurance License and a National Multistate Mortgage License.
Our team offers clients 92 years of industry and practical experience helping clients manage and prepare for their financial future. We understand the demands and responsibilities of managing wealth, and we draw upon the vast resources of Merrill Lynch to offer a total wealth management strategy tailored to your individual needs.
How do you make sure clients get the best service/results?
I believe that relationships are built on trust, open communication and transparency and that’s my entire team’s top priority! We have a disciplined goals-based wealth management process that we follow with each client to make sure that no details are overlooked and all of our recommendations are addressed. The strength of a client’s strategy will mean little if it falls short at execution. Our methodology is designed to educate clients to help them make the best financial decisions and our strength is the communication to make sure that strategy is executed. Communication is the key and we connect with most clients monthly.
What contributes to your success?
My amazing clients and family! Over the past 14 years, I have developed some wonderful relationships with clients who I call friends now. I love to come to work and get true gratification seeing our clients achieve their financial goals like retiring, buying a vacation home, selling a business or leaving a family legacy. I could never forget my amazing wife, Aeana, and our two boys Quin (4) and Wells (2), who give me the support, courage and motivation to keep me striving to be the best I can be.
How has your business grown or changed and where are you going from here?
Our practice is constantly evolving with the needs of our clients and the economic changes we all face. When I first started, I was a stand-alone advisor for 8 years and now I have a team of six. Significant wealth requires sophisticated strategies and a responsibility to deliver to our clients. I really believe that clients are demanding that advisors have teams of diverse skills and multigenerational strengths that can help take advantage of synergies between professional and family needs. Today we are spending a lot more time advising clients on personalized income and tax strategies, college education, social security, longevity and health care, as well as estate and philanthropic planning.
Mitchell McLeod Pugh & Williams
Mitchell McLeod Pugh & Williams (“MMPW”) is an independent, employee-owned investment advisory firm located in Mobile. As of July 31, our regulatory assets under management were $1.1 billion. We provide financial advice for individuals and work extensively as a fiduciary investment advisor for 401(k) plans. Our clients also include trusts, estates, non-profits, endowments and foundations. 2610 Dauphin St. • (251) 471-2027 • mmpw.com
Is MMPW a stock broker?
No. MMPW is a registered investment advisor (“RIA”). As an RIA, we have a fiduciary duty to our clients, which means that we have a fundamental obligation to always act in our clients’ best interests and to always put our clients’ interests above our own.
The word “fiduciary” is an important one, and one we do not take lightly. In practice, we believe our clients are better served by the fact that we have no affiliation with a large brokerage firm. This independence and our “open architecture” approach further our ability to invest on our clients’ behalf in an unbiased way with our sole focus always on doing what is best for them.
In just a few words, how would you describe your approach to managing money?
MMPW believes money is made and maintained by following a disciplined, consistent and long-term approach to investing. We seek to reduce risk and volatility through broad diversification and by using high-quality securities. Lastly, we have observed that most investors pay too much for financial services, often without knowing how much they are paying or why they are paying it. MMPW focuses on keeping costs low and completely transparent because, ultimately, fees and expenses are the only aspects of investing that have any proven predictive value on investment returns.
Gulf Coast Financial Advisors
We are a 100 percent independent, 100 percent locally owned fee-based financial planning and wealth advisory practice located in the heart of downtown Fairhope. 413 Johnson Ave. • Fairhope • 251–327–2124 • www.gulfcoastfa.com
What is your mission?
The foundation of our practice is the education and enlightenment of our clients so that they understand what is happening with their money and why. Whether we are helping a young family start out, or a retiree celebrate the gift of a long life, we serve as a watchdog to protect and preserve what our clients have built or are trying to build.
What sets your business apart?
Competent, knowledgeable and relentless focus on risk management and efficiencies of fees and expenses within a financial plan, while accounting for the fact that we are all human with human emotions. People hire us because relationships matter. Being fully independent also sets us apart because we only answer to one boss: the client.
How do you make sure clients get the best service/results?
At the end of the day, people want their financial plan to work as advertised. Period. So for us it’s about the continual sharpening of proven strategies — marrying common sense money management processes with downside protections and never, ever forgetting the goals of the client.
What contributes to your success?
The hard-earned lessons from my own personal financial mistakes and successes. Just like many of my clients, we’ve had to scratch and claw and sacrifice to get where we are, and I think that resonates. Having learned real-life financial lessons, not just something out of a textbook, means I can honestly offer judgement- free, experienced, no-pressure financial guidance. For me, it’s more than just operating in “best interests.” It’s about always being on the lookout out for my clients.
How has your business grown or changed and where are you going from here?
We continue to expand, grow and learn, and we are not afraid of change. To stay relevant and productive in our industry, you must always be learning and you must always be on your toes. We will never rest on our laurels. And no matter how much our practice grows, we will always focus on making sure our clients know the score as well.
