Kathy's Story Continued...

Kathy was born in Chicago and lived in the area of what she called the “south side Irish” neighborhood. She is the middle child of seven children, which has taught her lots of patience. Her mother always told her children to get along together and be there for one another, and they still do. Kathy moved to the western suburbs during her school years up until her senior year in high school when they moved to St. Paul, Minnesota because her father was transferred. She lived there for ten years, and graduated from Mankato State University.

Her first job out of college was as a social worker for Bule Earth County Human Services, doing financial assistance for people applying for welfare benefits.  Ever since she was younger, she had a strong work ethic and desire to work with others. She was in Mankato for 5 years, until her sister moved to Cupertino, CA to be with her boyfriend (now husband of 38 years), so she followed.

Kathy chose financial planning as a career because she wanted to be of service to people. When she moved to CA in June 1980, she worked with Manpower to secure some temp jobs. Her roommate in MN was a placement director in the local office in Mankato, so she took the “tests”- typing speed and adding machine accuracy, that helped get her placed at local companies right away.  One of them was Bateman Eichler, an investment firm in San Jose, for a two week job.  In the middle of the 2^nd week, one of the assistants went for a break,  and informed the manager she would not be coming back from lunch….. Kathy was at the right place at the right time.  That took place in September of 1980. Then, she got her first license in August of 1981, and got 6 more after that.  (Safe to say that Kathy likes this business).  

Kathy is working towards her retirement. Her dream retirement volunteer job would be to work with seniors by reading them their financial statements. She can also work with them to prepare tax documents.  Many people come to  her with a pile of papers, but they don’t really know what they own. She thinks she is a pretty good teacher, and has learned a lot of patience over the years.