My Mission Statement: To help middle class Americans safeguard their families, get out of debt and educate their children while developing a comprehensive financial plan for retirement. Born and raised in Minnesota, I graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1987 and served in the surface navy for eight years. I completed my MBA in 1995 and after being shown a handful of basic financial concepts I decided to take the "Lump Sump Buyout" and resign my commission to work in the financial field to help others understand basic financial concepts.After seven years of training and I left my first company in 1999 and started 1st Step Financial. In 2000 I added mortgages which I discontinued at the end of 2022.I enjoy my blog "fishfear.blogspot.com", ocean fishing, offshore sailing, gardening, stargazing, hiking with my wife and building and flying experimental airplanes. I earned my private pilots license in 2006 and my instrument rating in 2010. For years I've enjoy flying up and down the East Coast in the clouds. In 2019 I became a Vans RV-9A test pilot and completed the required 40 hour phase one testing for an older builder who lost his medical and thus his ability to fly. Shortly after finishing his flight testing I decided to build my own RV-14A.I’m the very proud father of two wonderful daughters. The oldest graduated with honors from VMI and is now an Army Major stationed at "The Box" in California. She wants to be an astronaut and dreams of living on Mars. My youngest graduated with honors from Virginia Tech and has gravitated to industrial sales. She finished a Masters in International Relations at the University of Linköping, Sweden and currently is helping a established construction company create the sales team for industrial solar energy installations. For years she's been helping to solve the world's energy needs and lives in Virginia Beach, VA.