Jim Parks, founder, and president of Ridgewood, N.J.-based Parks Wealth Management, had his company’s mission crystallized for him during a 2014 LPL Focus presentation. The inspiration was a quote from author and consultant Jim Collins, who said, “How will some people’s lives be better and different because you are here? Life is people; be useful.”

“Every day, our team strives to provide value in many different ways,” Jim says. “It might be showing our clients that they are on track to retire based on financial planning projections within eMoney, or making the complex simple so they can easily understand financial planning and investment strategies that can help them pursue their goals, or serving as their advocate in conversations with family or other professionals.”
 

The best part of the job

“There’s no better feeling than when clients tell us we make them feel like family,” Jim says. “That’s the ultimate compliment and my true measure of personal and professional success.”

Jim’s team uses their own investment models within Strategic Asset Management (SAM), primarily for nonretirement portfolios, “where we can tax-efficiently manage the money and include outside model positions when it is in our clients’ best interest,” Jim says. “We then sometimes utilize the resources of outside managers within LPL’s centrally managed platforms for retirement money to better diversify our clients’ total portfolios.” 

LPL Financial’s comprehensive, open-architecture platform is one of the things he has valued since going independent in 2000, when he and his wife, Felicia, started Parks Wealth Management and joined LPL Financial.

“We are so thankful for the greater flexibility and independence that LPL provides our office to best meet our clients’ goals,” Jim says.

Jim’s team includes seven professionals who range in age from their 20 to their 60s. He says the team brings “unique strengths and experiences that our clients can identify with at almost any stage of their lives.”

One advisor, Jonathon Allen, creates client websites on eMoney and constructs projections to illustrate what clients can do today to pursue their goals.

“We explain to clients how the financial plan is a blueprint of their finances and helps to direct the course of action for all things financial,” says Jim. “This has been so helpful to assist our clients with their true, holistic wealth management above and beyond the investments we might manage.” 

Jim also strives to make a difference in people’s lives in his community, helping raise money for school activities and scholarships. He also raised $10,000 for a mobile soup kitchen serving the poor and homeless in New York City and New Jersey, but it wasn’t easy. He won a lottery entry to the Hawaii Ironman, a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run—in one day. 

“It was an honor to race with the best in the world in Hawaii, and I hope to return one day as a qualifier,” he says, “but I have to figure out how to be about 90 minutes faster in an Ironman!”

 

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