At the Firm

The CCMI team was busy rebalancing portfolios and preparing quarterly investment reports this month. For rebalancing, the team has the processes fairly dialed in, where the five advisors are reviewing all client portfolios over the course of two days (with a few stragglers that may extend a bit beyond that). For quarterly investment reports, the team writes and edits the cover letter and commentary, with many rounds of editing to get it right. We then have all advisors review the reports and invoices before turning them over to our client services team to compile the reports and get them distributed to clients. Both of these processes are quite an operation that our team looks to continue to improve to provide the most value to clients. 

The CCMI team is always up for a good food competition and started the month of October with an appetizer challenge. Each team member brought in their entry to be judged and voted on by other team members.  Congratulations to Matt Showley, who was voted Best Appetizer with his shrimp dip. Best Presentation went to Matt Ryan for his Pineapple Express appetizer, Best Hustle (effort) went to Sheila Hoopes for her Pumpkin Pecan Baked Brie, and the Healthy Human Award went to Tina Vieregg for her Crescent Veggie Pizza. Prizes were given to each winner, but the entire team won because we had delicious appetizers for lunch!

The advisors at CCMI all attended Schwab’s IMPACT virtual conference to hear from speakers including former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke; former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney; author and speaker Malcolm Gladwell; organizational psychologist and author Adam Grant; award-winning psychologist Susan David; and Schwab’s economic team of Jeff Kleintop and Liz Ann-Sonders. We look forward to continuing to improve our processes and firm with the knowledge gained from this conference. 

Brian enjoyed playing in the Don Coryell Golf Classic that supports the Bob Payne Family Branch of the Boy’s and Girl’s Club of Greater San Diego. He had a nice day on the golf course to support a wonderful cause.   

The CCMI team dressed up as Monopoly board game pieces for Halloween this year. While we take our work seriously, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, as we like to have fun as a team!

Matt Showley returned to attending in-person events beginning in October for the San Diego Estate Planning Council and the North County Estate Planning Council. For the past five years, Matt has been a board member of the San Diego council and finished his term over the summer. Matt also attended a Junior Achievement luncheon to kick off the JA board’s in-person events.

Kim continues to participate in Women in Business as the Membership co-chair and has been enjoying in-person events. Membership has been increasing and the plan is to increase beyond pre-pandemic levels. She also attended this month’s Estate Planning Council’s event on the topic of financial elder abuse and networked with other local estate planning attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors.

Matt Ryan has been working diligently to continue to improve and make our normal rebalancing period even more efficient by fine tuning our robust trading software. The CCMI team is constantly trying to improve our processes and the tools we use to serve clients. 

Tina has been busy preparing financial plans for several new clients. She also participated in rebalancing current investment accounts as well as investing new client assets. She has helped to set investment strategy for our clients and is preparing for year-end tax planning.

Sheila flew to Boston in mid-October to attend her first National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) conference. The conference provided a great opportunity to collaborate with other financial planning colleagues about best practices and discover new tools and services in the industry. She learned a lot from the educational sessions and is excited to put what she learned in practice to benefit CCMI and our clients.

 

On the Home Front

Sports have taken up most of Brian’s family’s free time in October. Emma (age 14) finished up her JV tennis year and enjoyed the team. Kai (age 12) and Koa (age 9) are finishing up their soccer seasons, and both are having good seasons for their teams. Nikki continues to be the one who holds everything together, as she makes sure the home front is taken care of and the Matter kids get to practices and school on time!

Matt Showley and his family enjoyed a Sunday morning picnic with friends at the beach in the Bird Rock area. They had so much fun they decided to do it again the following week after picking up delicious pastries from a nearby bakery.

During October, Kim and Tyler celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary with a nice dinner out and day out wine tasting in Ramona. What was more adventurous was their first experience making wine from cabernet grapes!  The grapes were rescued from Brian’s backyard and put to good use as they were going to be left unharvested. They have learned a great deal about wine making so far (with a lot more to learn) and currently have over five gallons in the fermentation process. They will need to be patient and it will be at least a year or two before it’s ready to drink!

Matt Ryan and his wife Jess took a weekend trip to visit friends from college in Denver. They stayed at a cabin in the woods and enjoyed a weekend full of hiking, fresh air, and good company. Their son Reid is now 10 months old and his personality is shining through.

Tina and Dave had a fun weekend with their daughter Sara during Family Weekend at CSU.  They attended a football game after tailgating and enjoyed the fall colors during several hikes. The highlight was meeting Sara’s wonderful friends and their families and watching the Rams beat the Spartans.

Monica started out the month of October by decorating her home for fall and Halloween. She has been busy on the weekends helping her mom downsize and pack for the impending sale of her house. It has been special to find forgotten family mementos in the process. While she will miss her mom as her next-door neighbor, she will only be a few blocks away. 

This month was pretty quiet for Abby and her family, just the same old routine of work, daily activities, and enjoying the outdoors every chance they get.  Abby did have dinner out at least once every weekend with family members and friends around town; that’s how she gets to see all those close to her.

Sheila, John, and Anastasia had a busy month of October. On October 6, they went to dinner as a family at a local restaurant to celebrate John andSheila’s ninth wedding anniversary. A few weeks later, they went to the Irvine Park Railroad pumpkin patch, where Anastasia got her face painted and got to ride on a pony. But most exciting for Anastasia this month was losing her two front teeth; she loves her visits from the tooth fairy!

Jessica went camping in Julian with her family and close family friends. They avoided hitting a flock of wild turkeys running through the fog on the drive in. Jessica’s daughters, Livi and Gigi, were very interested in a brindle bobcat that frequented their site. The family enjoyed some great hikes and spectacular stargazing in the brisk fall weather. Later in the month, the girls were delighted to participate in several Halloween activities dressed as Hermoine and a fox.

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