We have all likely learned a thing or two from the financial crisis of 2008, but that goes double for Jen Hildebrand, financial planning associate at KHC Wealth Management. Many of the firm’s clients engage us after they have experienced a turning point. Turning points are those major life events which alter the course of your personal life and often change your financial picture as well. Most of Jen’s turning points actually started with a financial change.
After high school, she earned her undergraduate degree in landscape architecture from Kansas State University and upon graduation, got a job as a landscape architect in Boulder, Colorado. The housing crash soon followed and while Jen survived 10 rounds of layoffs at her firm, she could see the writing on the wall. Her company was going under and she needed to find a new job. She was fortunate and found a job doing international resort design at a firm in Denver.
About a year after Jen started working at the new firm, the international markets crashed. Having been the most recently hired, she was among the first to be laid off. Jen realized that her degree was too specialized to offer her the career security and flexibility she needed. She decided to diversify her skill set which prompted another turning point – she moved to Canada and pursued an MBA with a finance concentration from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Not surprisingly, financial planning especially interested Jen as she was forced to navigate her own cash flow in a down economy. She learned the value of saving money and the importance of diversification from feeling like she had little control over her career in such a bad job market. She is passionate about teaching others the difficult lessons she learned from her turning points. At KHC, Jen helps clients use their financial capital as a tool in Making Life Count!®
This is one story of our “turning points” from the staff at KHC. We welcome you to comment to this post and share some of yours.