The New Commonsense Guide to Your 401(k): Rebuilding Your Portfolio From The Bottom up

Chapter 38. Expert Two

I ALSO CALLED ROSS LEVIN, president of Accredited Investors, a wealth management firm in Minneapolis. I haven't known Ross for quite as long as Don Phillips, but for almost as long.

At the time I got to know Don Phillips, I'd started writing columns and books and giving speeches to financial advisors. Before that, I'd been writing about the mutual fund industry from the consumer's perspective for some years, trying to make advice accessible to readers of Woman's Day, Family Circle, McCall's, and Ladies Home Journal and writing articles for Reader's Digest and USA Today. In 1986, Bob Veres, whom many in the financial planning industry see as a guru and, of course, others dislike, was editor of Financial Planning magazine. He asked me to write a mutual fund column, and I've been writing columns for financial planning magazines ever since. This was a time of huge change in the financial planning industry, where those planners who were independent, who served as fiduciaries for their clients rather than as salesmen pocketing a commission, made an indelible mark on the profession, and continue to do so.

Ross Levin is one of a small group of planners who came together in 1992, called themselves the Alpha Group, and began sharing information and goals and standards. Levin is also a person of honesty and integrity who tells a straight story. When I talked with him in March 2009, Levin told me that his firm hadn't lost any clients in 2008 but that the assets he managed ...