Episode 11: A RiskPro User Creating Plans for Churches - Doug Eagle

In this episode, you can listen to The Translator's host, Julie Mochan talk with an interesting individual that transitioned from a San Diego police officer to a RiskPro-using  financial professional  that followed his calling for helping individuals and churches throughout the country: Doug Eagle , President of Eagle Retirement Plans, Inc. is is the Translator's guest seat.  Enjoy!

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About RiskPro:  RiskPro® is a revolutionary technology platform that provides risk profiling, portfolio construction, and automated account surveillance. Serving as the World’s First Virtual Portfolio Strategist, RiskPro evaluates and communicates risk for investors, advisors, and home offices, utilizing a common language that is simple to understand. RiskPro was developed by ProTools, LLC., a RegTech innovator headquartered in Newport Beach, CA.
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ProTools, LLC is not affiliated with Envestnet, Eagle Retirement Plans, LLC or Crown Capital Securities, LP. 

About   Eagle Retirement Plans, Inc. Eagle Retirement Plans, Inc. offers Holistic Wealth Management Plans for groups and individuals specializing in helping individuals with their retirement plans as well as helping public, private, and non-profit employers design and manage cost-effective retirement plans. Focus is on helping our clients build retirement plans as the cornerstone to a well-balanced strategic investment portfolio.  Eagle Retirement Plans has a proprietary process that provides a framework for in-depth strategic analysis while allowing the flexibility needed to bring creativity and new thinking to each plan. Retirement Planning is our business, so we know that keeping current with financial industry news is essential to making informed, strategic decisions.  Interested pastors or churches can find more information here or email Doug@EagleRetirementPlans.com Disclosure: Securities and Advisory services offered through Crown Capital Securities, LP, Member FINRA/SIPC. Eagle Retirement Plans, Inc. and Crown Capital Securities, LP are not affiliated.

Statistics quoted in podcast:  1 in 4 workers
Podcast Music:  Araelia Lopatic

Transcript

The Translator by RiskPro with Host Julie Mochan
Episode 11: A RiskPro User Creating Plans for Churches – Guest: Doug Eagle 

Show length: 23:53  

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Julie: Hello there everyone. This is Julie Mochan and you are listening to The Translator, brought to you by RiskPro, where WeathTech and RegTech converge. This is Episode 11. 

[00:00:11] And if you're not familiar with RiskPro. I'm going to give it to you really quick. RiskPro is The Universal Translator of risk. 

[00:00:18] Anyone who deals with investor portfolios should take a look at RiskPro and what it can do, because it literally has the ability to put everyone on the same page when it comes to what the investor really wants. Everything that you need to know about you can click through on the show notes and more. 

[00:00:38] Not everything that you need to know. But, Jeff Olson, the President of RiskPro. His number’s listed, give him a buzz. He would love to talk to you. Because this is November and from now until the end of the year. If you are an Envestnet customer (enterprise utilizing investment). You can get a free extended test drive of RiskPro for 

[00:01:00] everyone at your firm. So, you can't go wrong, it can't hurt. No strings attached. Crazy not to. All right. Let's get to our guest, this is a very timely conversation I believe, because recently I've been reading everywhere and watching on television about, the labor market. 

[00:01:18] Since the pandemic, things have gotten super weird in a lot of different ways, right? It seems that, people are not going back into the labor market necessarily that quickly (for whatever reason I won't get into) but the ones that are in positions currently,  

[00:01:40] 1 out of 4 are looking to move to a different job or a different career path. They realize the pandemic changed them somehow. So that, whether they realized that they needed more family time, or they were looking inward and wanted to do something else with their life. We’ll see those statistics 

[00:02:00] eventually come out. Again, the bottom line is they don't want to continue to do what they were doing. And my guest today

[00:02:06] is someone that had those thoughts, but for him it was more of an epiphany 10 or 12 years ago. Where, he was a very successful financial advisor, but something took place in his life that triggered, a look inward and changed the lives of many people around him. And he's doing a fantastic job

[00:02:28] serving others plus he's a great advisor and uses RiskPro. So, he’s, our guest.  His name is Doug Eagle. He's from Eagle Retirement Plans, Inc. in Valencia, California, grew up in San Diego. There are lots of things that you'll find in the show notes about Doug because he has a spectacular, eclectic career. 

[00:02:48] And so I urge you to check him out. And let's talk to him. 

[00:02:52] Doug Eagle of Eagle Retirement Plans - Welcome today to The Translator! Thank you so much for being here, happy to 

[00:03:00] have you. 

[00:03:00] Doug Eagle: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. 

[00:03:02] Julie: Doug, you are our first guest on The Translator, that is an advisor.

[00:03:07] We've had guests in the past that are, either CEOs or Chief Operating Officers that told us about how they're using RiskPro from the compliance side or back-office side. And you're using it as an advisor on the front end, so could you tell us a little bit about that 

[00:03:24] Doug Eagle: We use RiskPro as part of our risk mitigation with regards to investments, so RiskPro has become a large, part of our onboarding, process, and ongoing management with client portfolios. We have a sizable book of clients that have been with us 25- 30, in some cases, more than 35 years. They started with us when they were new teachers. My former partner was a schoolteacher and he got into this business because his dad was, basically a “portfolio guy”.

[00:03:57] He managed stocks and different things for his 

[00:04:00] clients. So, he got into helping with 403(b) plans. And that's how the business started in 1981 as a 403(b) office, working with school districts, up and down the state of California

[00:04:11] Julie: Many people may not know exactly what a 403(b) is. Um, anyone that works at a university knows what it is, but can you expand on just what that is? 

[00:04:21] Doug Eagle: lot of folks are very familiar with 401k plans for for-profit companies - 403(b)s are for the nonprofits like school districts and churches.

[00:04:33] When the office started in 1981, my partner, and eventually I was trained on how to mitigate risk in a portfolio. We would do individual bonds, bond funds and alternatives, things that are non-correlated to the stock market.

[00:04:51] And so what we would do is say, okay, let's just take a 50 50 example and say, half the money is in the stock market half is in bonds or something getting 5 

[00:05:00] or 6% total return. Right? Your blended returns end up around 7.  Okay. Pretty simple math.

[00:05:05] So every time we would work with a client, we'd say, okay, how much risk are you willing to take on your portfolio? It was more from a macro standpoint, meaning stock market investment vs non-stock market investments. So then fast forward to, 2013, somewhere around there, I met  up with RiskPro and they started showing me how this tool is built, so, it was a very natural progression to go ahead and move forward with RiskPro because now I can go from a macro level analysis of a portfolio down to the micro and as I tell the clients, it's almost like having a “scalpel” on a portfolio.

[00:05:45] For example, very specifically say I want 22.45% in large cap value or, 10% in growth or whatever (I'm just throwing numbers out there). Um, but I could do that very surgically using RiskPro

 [00:06:00] as my tool to build and maintain and monitor their portfolios. 

[00:06:04] Julie: what was your conversation like? So, if you didn't use RiskPro in your business, and then you bring this software on board. And the conversation… does it change? 

[00:06:14] Was it easy? Can you get into that a little bit?

[00:06:16] Doug Eagle: It'll be a simple conversation. As I mentioned earlier up until RiskPro it was more of a macro level, right? How much stock market versus bond or non-stock market investments…that's pretty macro, it’s pretty high level, but now you’re able to surgically dissect the portfolio 

[00:06:36] and determine, down to a 10th of a percent, how much they want or need in each asset class and to show the clients that look…. um, let me back up a little bit. It actually exposed some of our biases, so my bias was more towards large cap value, a little more conservative.

[00:06:55] So what it did is opened me up to say, okay, look, maybe I'm a 

[00:07:00] little too conservative. I need to add some more growth or maybe some more small caps into it because our portfolios. As I looked back didn't have as much small cap exposure, that it probably could have had in previous years.

[00:07:15] So to be able to show them [for example] “Hey look, you’ve been very happy with what we've done. It's been more of a macro level in terms of how we build the portfolio. Now we're going to get down into the micro levels. We're really going to slice and dice this up and put it into so many, different asset classes.”

[00:07:30] And yet we can still maintain your risk tolerance that you've been comfortable with because you may keep the same 50% allocation. But now we're going to allocate more of that 50% towards small cap and even mid cap. As a matter of fact, I forced every single couple to come into the office. And I said, “Look, we're going to do this and I'm not going to do it unless both of you are here” - because I want the wife to understand what 

[00:08:00] risk is there. 

[00:08:00] “Because if you pass away, she needs to know what's going on, so I want her to know right now.” 

[00:08:07] Julie: All right. Let me stop you and ask a quick question because, I've seen a change over the years in how, spouses treat that conversation.  In the past, one spouse, was either not listening or, you know, one took care of the investing and the other took care of the checking or whatever. It's changing a little bit, so can you give us an example

[00:08:30] of what demographic you're mostly dealing with?

[00:08:33] Doug Eagle: I have 70-year-old couples coming in, right? As a matter of fact, I remember one case, where the wife was a schoolteacher, 

[00:08:40] the husband was a district attorney. We were working with them, and I bring them in and, they kind of looked at each other as they’re going through this. And then she looked at him and like, are you kidding? How much risk did we have, you know, but she understood it; she walked away going “I get it”. 

[00:08:54] Now that's how much risk is in our portfolio. This is the range of returns. So on and so forth. She walked away 

[00:09:00] more comfortable. 

[00:09:00] Julie: I don't mean to interrupt you, but here's another thing that I forgot to ask. So, let's say there are two people sitting in front of you and one of them acted like they knew what you were talking about. And the other one was like, well, I don't understand this, but I'm just going to go with what my spouse or partner says. And I guess my question is, did you ever feel like the person who was “supposed” to understand what you were talking about, didn’t understand either? And they were maybe too proud to just say” hey, I don't know what you're saying.”

[00:09:30] Or “I don't get it, can you say that again?”

[00:09:34] Doug Eagle: do they get it now or did they, or are you asking if they got it beforehand?

[00:09:38] Julie: both ways, before RiskPro and after RiskPro 

[00:09:43] Doug Eagle: both ways beforehand? No, we would talk to them about it. It was hard to conceptualize because it was just, you know, sometimes I felt like I was Charlie Brown's teacher. Right. that they're not getting it, even though I'm explaining it, I'm showing them the math and I'm

[00:10:00] running the math. they're just not getting it.

[00:10:02] Now I'm not going to say that's everyone was that way, but I'd say the that possibly the majority were not understanding thoroughly. Now, with the tool they can see…and what's interesting is that I do the building of the portfolio right in front of them. [00:10:18] And, what they're seeing is. How just a little bit of a change in some aspects of the portfolio changes their risk. So, they like sitting there watching as I go through it now, you know, sometimes it takes a little bit longer, depending on what's going on with the portfolio, but some of them I've been able to sit there and they're like, oh, you're not going to get it spot on. And I'm like, you said 200k downside risk, right?  They are like, yeah, but it's 199, 198 is fine. And I make one little tweak in the adjustment of the portfolio and boom, we're at 200 exactly where they want it. 

[00:10:50] And they're like, oh, okay. I see how that works. And as said, that's how I'm able to take that “scalpel”, and slice and dice that portfolio to get it exactly where you (they) want and that you (they) 

[00:11:00] are monitoring me. Now, we now have an agreement and that's how I know to monitor and manage your portfolio. 

[00:11:06] And you can rest assured that that's how it's going to be done. And it's not just me deciding what we're buying and what we're selling, you know, for whatever reason, it's, there's a specific reason for what we're doing and it's filling a need within your portfolio. To achieve what you want to accomplish within your portfolio.

[00:11:25] Julie: I love the fact that you found with RiskPro that you were being a little too conservative in portfolios. And that you maybe didn't think to pick up some different types of securities thinking that they were too aggressive and not realizing because you didn't have the algorithm to show you and catch volatility 

[00:11:43] in places where it may be or wouldn't think it was AND in other cases, how do I want to say this? Where certain investments get a bad rap because, for whatever reason in the past, they were too volatile. 

[00:11:54] But RiskPro picks that up, meaning that something could look to be very 

[00:12:00] volatile and, maybe have, high growth and low volatility. 

[00:12:03] Hey, Doug, I talked to Jeff about this. I think you build models, tell us how you build models or tell us a little bit about your models in your business that helps you save time and how you use RiskPro that way.

[00:12:15] Doug Eagle: Well, and we even kind of changed things up a little bit as we pick indices to represent asset classes, because a lot of clients may want to include individual stocks and some different things in the portfolio. Well, if I have just their individual investments listed and we change it, I get a new signed document.

[00:12:33] So what we've done is we've, uh, put in asset class indices that represent that investment’s class. So, if they're talking investments and we want to change things up, or if I get a bad manager and I realized, hey, I want to change out this fund and go from this fund to that fund. I can do that wholeheartedly across the board with every client. 

[00:12:51] I can wholesale change out one and pick up another one. And I've not changed anybody’s portfolio risk at all. Now we tend to be a little 

[00:13:00] more client centric and I don't have eight models built already. What I have found is volatility changes as I pick up new clients, the volatility may have gone down, even in just the last three or four months, 

[00:13:15] right?  And if I had the same allocation that it was four months ago, so I like to specifically have an allocation that's built for that client at the time they're joining us. They're getting the current volatility with their specific risk tolerance. 

[00:13:31] It ends up being a little bit more customized for them than maybe some others where they're just using some, you know, six to eight different models or even 10 models. 

[00:13:42] Julie: Yeah. I totally get it. And there's always tax situations as well, obviously in taxable accounts, whether someone has something they've been holding on to for a long time with a significant capital gain or whatever the case is you must customize to a certain extent.

[00:13:58] Doug Eagle: Yeah.

[00:13:58] Julie: All right. Let's switch 

[00:14:00] gears a little bit and talk about 403(b)s… I don't remember the year that this happened, but I know that 403(b)s used to be this different sort of different animal in the tax exempt market and things changed, a couple of years ago…..I'm saying a couple of years ago it was probably like 15 years ago whenever  it was, but things changed, 

[00:14:19] and now 403(b) plans, are much more similar to a 401k plan structure. I want to understand though what you're doing in that space, the 403(b) space

[00:14:29] Doug Eagle: yeah. Yeah. 403(b)s have really gone through a metamorphosis since 2009. 

[00:14:36] when all, nonprofits, school districts, churches, uh, they all had to, in some form or fashion, have a plan document, or some way to monitor the contributions 

[00:14:48] Julie: yeah, there's some shady things that can happen if there's not a plan document, obviously, or if someone's not monitoring contributions.  But you saw a need in a certain sector or a certain part of the nonprofit 

[00:15:00] world that was being underserved and you did something about it can you tell us that story

[00:15:07] Doug Eagle: Actually, it started in 2008. I had an uncle that passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack, and he was a pastor in Ohio.

[00:15:15] And so I, you know, I was back and forth there a few times, and he passed away and I kind of looked at, I just kind of started taking stock of what I was doing, right?  I'm building these portfolios for wealthy people. Um, I 

[00:15:29] Julie: His life influenced you, right? 

[00:15:31] Doug Eagle: it did. Yeah. 

[00:15:32] And I wanted to be a pastor at one point, um, out of high school, went to school, hoping to do that. And God took me on a different kind of different journey but, um, anyway, wrestled with the Lord for about a year. And this is all I'm going to do is build portfolios for, you know, wealthy people and, and just doing this?  Meanwhile, I’d been serving at the church in various capacities with men's ministries and treasury and all a bunch of different things.

[00:15:55] Anyway. it was 2009 that a friend of mine who is, or 

[00:16:00] was at the time, a, an administrative pastor for a church that we were attending in San Diego before we moved up to Valencia and he asked if I was aware of the 403(b)-9 church plans that were out there. And, and I was. It just so happened that for the previous four or five years, 

[00:16:19] I was working with the pastors of our church with their plan, kind of helping them manage it in combination. I helped him with it. Understood the plan. Yes. they were asking me to do something for them. And I said, look, the denomination that you're with, that plan, you can't beat that plan. 

[00:16:35] So there's nothing I can do for you. I'll just help you manage what's in that plan, as part of my service to you guys, and so that's what we did. So when, my other friend asked, and I said, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. And he basically requested that I build him a plan, but not just for his church, but for all the other…

[00:16:58] it was a Calvary Chapel church. 

[00:17:00] Julie: That's a huge church. 

[00:17:01] Doug Eagle: there's probably 2000 Calvary chapels across the world. I think there's over eight, about 1800, just in the U S. Anyway, so he said he wanted it to benefit any other Calvary Chapel that would like to participate.

[00:17:14] So I built a multiple employer, 403(b)9 plan that provides all the benefits for pastors and gets pretty technical in there, we don't need to get into it now, but we now have little over a hundred from Hawaii to New Jersey, from Florida to Oregon, I mean, basically crisscrossing the country. and so, it's been great.

[00:17:35] Julie: Doug. That's great that you've put the time into it. And I think it's really cool that you sort of felt a calling after your uncle passed away and you're helping a lot of people because of this. I know personally from working for a firm years ago, that was, a TPA and, also an RIA and it seemed like every year a church would call and ask: “Hey, 

[00:17:58] do you have something for 

[00:18:00] us?” And we always were like, yeah, but no, it's like way too expensive. We can't, it doesn't make sense. So, I just think it's fabulous. and I'm happy to hear it. I’ll make sure all the info is in the show notes of course. So, is it for any denomination, like any church? Do you have to have a certain number of churches, you know, under your denomination? How does that work? 

[00:18:23] Doug Eagle: a lot of nondenominational churches, but. Three that I'm looking at right now that we're putting together once, for a synagogue. So, I can replicate that for the Jewish community, which we're looking at doing for a gentleman in New York. 

[00:18:38] So we're, we're working with him on that. and I've got two other ones that are just, they're all separate denominations, so we can customize it specifically for their denomination. And one, it only has like 25- 30 churches in it. We can still do that for them. And they can get all the benefits and all the cost savings because our platform that we're on is, pretty 

[00:19:00] substantial and, uh, we're able to get some pretty good pricing.

[00:19:02] Julie: Alright, one more thing I wanted to ask that we talked in the pre-podcast before I let you go here, and it was an acronym, I think it was A C, B, C…. can you let us know, l the audience know what that is?

[00:19:18] Doug Eagle: It's called AC BC.

[00:19:20] Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. And that is a tremendous ministry that, it basically using the Bible to counsel people with issues that they're struggling with and. so there's a certification process for that.

[00:19:40] You can't just say: Hey, I'm a biblical counselor now. Right. Um, I've done a couple of classes and that's it. It's, it's more robust in that you go through, An initial 30- or 40-hour worth of training. You go through a bunch of reading and study material. Um, then you must 

[00:20:00] pass an exam. 

[00:20:01] There's a two-part exam. It's a theological exam is the first part. And then the second part is a counseling, and they go through several case scenarios that you've got to provide biblical guidance through and how you would handle those cases. 

[00:20:17] Each question will necessitate somewhere between one and a half to about two pages worth of answers for each question.

[00:20:24] What? Ha-ha, no multiple choice? yowzah

[00:20:28] Doug Eagle: No believe me, I wish it was, it would have been great way easier. Oh, man. But, yeah, so it ended up being, like I say, you're talking 85 to 95 pages.

 [00:20:41] It's a big document by the time you're all said and done, you've answered everything. And then after that you have 50 hours’ worth of supervision that you've got to go to. I'm fortunate enough that, the master’s university is right around the corner and one of their professors on their board as a fellow, a supervisor. He 

[00:21:00] and I have been meeting and Lord willing, I should be able to get my certification here.

[00:21:03] Julie: Well, I think you told me that your wife, Joanne of 30 years, is already certified so she can pull you across the finish line. Hopefully. I want to say one more thing - besides, thank you so much for spending time with me today. I would like to have you back at some point, because I love to hear about your career 

[00:21:22] with the San Diego PD SWAT team. That life before the year, 2000, when you decided to become a financial advisor and go on the path that you're on now. So. Please come back. And take good care!

[00:21:33] Doug Eagle: Well, my pleasure being here, I appreciate the time. And, I hope, what I provided is useful to those that are listening. So 

[00:21:40] Julie: I'm sure it will be Doug, unless I completely screw it up{laugh}. 

[00:21:45] Doug Eagle: I doubt that. Thanks for your time.

Disclosure: this recording has been prepared and made available by RiskPro to be used for information purposes only. RiskPro is an investment risk. Profiling and portfolio construction software as a service platform developed by pro tools, LLC. The information contained herein including any expression of opinion has been obtained from, or is based on sources believed to be reliable, but its accuracy or completeness is not guaranteed and is subject to change without notice any expressions of opinions reflect the views of the speakers and are not necessarily those. Of pro tools LLC or its affiliates pro tools does not provide investment tax or legal advice. Investors should consult their financial tax or legal professionals before investing.