Steve "Stack" Stackhouse

Steve Stackhouse's path into financial services began with his parents and a meeting that didn't go the way it should have. His father had retired from the federal government after a long career. With savings to manage and real decisions ahead, the family sat down with a financial advisor. They left more confused than when they walked in, not because the concepts were too complicated, but because the advisor wasn't genuinely interested in helping them. Their accounts were modest, and the advisor made that obvious.

On the drive home, Steve decided he could do the job better. Within a few months, he was in a training program with a major Wall Street firm. Thirty years of financial planning have followed from that afternoon, and from the commitment he made on the drive home. No client who sits across from him leaves feeling dismissed, confused, or invisible.

Steve approaches every recommendation and every conversation where someone trusts him with a decision that matters by asking himself what he would tell his own family to do. That question shapes the nature of the advice. It means he'll say something a client may not want to hear when the situation calls for it, and it means the families he works with know his recommendations come from the same place as advice he'd give his own parents.

Steve has also taught throughout his career, lecturing on retirement income strategies and leading investment courses at Penn State University and the American Institute of Banking. He continues to volunteer as a presenter on charitable estate planning for churches and nonprofit organizations in the region.

Living in Hershey, Steve considers it genuinely one of a kind, right down to the streetlights shaped like Hershey Kisses. His wife, Michele, has been his partner in every sense, in life and in the business they've built together. Their daughter Samantha recently launched her own career in wealth management, a development that means more to him than he can easily put into words. Outside the office, Steve plays golf with cheerful indifference to the score and finds his clearest thinking while fishing. A lifelong Notre Dame fan, he coached girls' high school basketball for years and now volunteers regularly with Girls on the Run, a program that uses running to build confidence and resilience in young girls.

• CFP® (Certified Financial Planner™)
• ChFC® (Chartered Financial Consultant)
• CLU® (Chartered Life Underwriter)