As CEO and founder of Ownership Advisors, Richard brings over 30 years of experience in counseling successful families to navigate through difficult life transitions. Early in his career, Richard became fascinated about how families of wealth with access to the best and brightest advisors could still experience a 90% failure rate within three generations. Over the years, much of his work was aimed at studying the habits of the outliers that beat the odds. He is considered a thought leader in developing customized processes to help families better understand the impact of money on family, community and important relationships. Richard is the creator of the Probate Dress Rehearsal™, a detailed and practical approach to helping spouses gain clarity and alignment around wealth.
Richard has authored many articles on business succession and charitable estate planning. In addition to counseling his own clients, Richard successfully engineered his own exit strategy after more than 10 years with a prominent local family held business. Richard is an accomplished speaker and has presented programs at many organizations including:
- The Attorneys for Family Held Enterprises
- Cleveland Estate Analysts
- The ESOP Association
- The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO)
- Ohio Ownership Center
- Greater Cleveland Growth Association
- Catholic Charities
- Northern Ohio Planned Giving Council
- The Ohio Chapter of CPA’s
- American Society of CLU
- Precision Machined Products Association
- Precision Metal Formers Association
- Ashland University
- Kent State University
Richard and his wife Gail live in Lakewood Ohio where they enjoy cooking and old movies and learning how to be the best grandparents. Richard loves to read and has a hard time throwing out old books who he considers his friends and mentors. He enjoys keeping active with yoga, biking and running. Richard and his wife have been long term members of Bay Presbyterian Church where they both serve as elders and deacons.