2015 Trusted Advisers Wealth Manager: Brian McCracken

It didn’t take long for Brian McCracken to discover people were wary of financial advisers. That made him determined to be trained well and practice with integrity.

“I needed to choose the right firm with a training program that would provide me resources I needed to understand how my accounting background could be applied to the various types of investments available to individuals and companies,” says McCracken, vice president and portfolio manager with Pinnacle Family Advisors LLC.

For McCracken, helping individuals meant providing products and services by the most professional and ethical means possible and putting clients first is integral to his practice.

“I have always made it a priority in my practice to consider what is best for the client regardless of the commission or fees,” he says, of becoming an investment adviser in 2002. “This has proven to be very successful for me as I built a practice based on adherence to the highest ethical standards and commitment to long-term relationships with my clients.”

He believes his focus on ethics has instilled a mutual trust between him and his clients. He says that trust becomes an advising role depending on his clients’ situation and goals.

“Many of my clients are hardworking individuals, focused on stashing away as much as possible,” he says. “Many people find the world of investing to be overwhelming, intimidating and just plain scary.”

His advisory role is ever changing. He describes himself as a teacher helping clients understand investments, listener as they discuss financial goals and their investment adviser as they select the products and services. He hopes to impact their decisions and help his clients understand the investment long game – how these investments will provide college for their children and an income stream in retirement. If he’s advising high-net-worth people, McCracken’s involvement can be more intensive.

“My role allows me to apply my background in accounting as we implement changes in the portfolios to improve cash flow, minimize capital gains and manage market risk,” McCracken says. “I also work with their CPAs and their lawyers to address estate planning and charitable giving. They respect my input, and they trust me to follow up with them once a strategy has been implemented.”

Entrepreneur Ryan O’Reilly is a longtime McCracken client.

 “I appreciate and value his background as a CPA in evaluating many different kinds of deals in an advisory capacity, from simple land purchases to complicated mergers,” O’Reilly says. “Most of all, I appreciate the trust I can place in Brian. I have, in all things, found him to be honest, ethical and with sound judgment. I feel confident he has used all resources and his expertise before making any recommendation. I also trust he will follow up on any strategies and will report to me in a timely fashion. I have a limited number of people who I bounce ideas off of. Brian is one of those people.”