About the Author

I’ve already told you a little bit about why I decided to write this book, and you’ll read more stories in the book which will further elaborate on why I devoted time to this project. 

As with any book or educational program, I believe it is vitally important for you to know the details of the author’s background.  Why?  When you are reading a book which is supposed to help you alter your life to build wealth in a tax- favorable manner where your decisions will affect you for the rest of your life, don’t you think you should know something about the person who wrote the book?  I think so.

Therefore, if you will indulge me, I will give you the not-so-brief history of my professional career and will let you determine for yourself my credibility as an author.

Let me start a discussion about my background by going back to my fourth year of undergraduate studies at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in 1992.  In 1992, I was a commercial pilot looking to graduate undergrad in 1993 and start looking for a job. As it turned out, the airline industry was in a tailspin (pun intended), and you could not find a job anywhere (and if you found one, it was a very low-paying job).  Actually, to get a job, you had to pay the airlines for your own training (which usually exceeds $10,000).

Thinking that flying would be a fun career, but not the only possible one, I contacted my parents and asked them what they would think if I decided not to work as a pilot and instead went to law school?

To my surprise, they were very supportive of the move; and so in 1993, I started law school at Valparaiso University School of Law.

While in law school, I decided that I wanted to be a personal injury attorney (you see them typically on the back of your phone books).  I had family friends who did that type of law, and they seemed happy and made more money than other attorneys in my home town.  Therefore, when taking elective courses in law school, I concentrated on personal injury courses.

When I graduated from law school (similar to the airline industry), personal injury law was on the downswing due to “tort reform.”  Therefore, few firms were hiring in the area where I wanted to live.

As it turned out, I could not find a job that I wanted; and so in 1996, I ended up coming back to my home town of St. Joseph, Michigan, to practice law with my father, Roccy M. DeFrancesco, Sr., J.D.  My areas of practice were business law (setting up corporations), real estate law, a little personal injury law, and a heavy emphasis on estate planning and divorce law.

I was truly amazed at how much Roccy, Sr., knew and was more than happy to make virtually no money while learning as much as I could from him.

As it turns out, I’ve got one of those personalities where I’m always searching for that next challenge in life.  The next challenge was to still become a personal injury attorney.  After a year or so of working with Roccy, Sr., I found out that our local personal injury firm in town was hiring (a rare occasion).  The firm was founded by a long-time family friend who after an interview process hired me to be their new associate in the summer of 1997.

During that summer, I blew out my knee playing with my dog in the yard and had it operated on by another long-time family friend, Dr. Sterling Doster, and his new sports fellowship-trained surgeon, Dr. Gregory Fox.  Most people stop me when I’m going through the twisted story of why I do what I do for a living and ask why I tell people I blew my knee out.  The answer is simple─blowing my knee out and having it operated on ended up being a life-altering event as you will read.

On one of the follow-up visits with the doctors who fixed my knee (their office was in Bloomington, Indiana, which was four hours south of where I lived at the time), we all went out to dinner. After a few glasses of wine, the doctors asked me if I wanted to come down to Bloomington to run their medical practice.  They said their office manager was getting in over her head and that they’d double my salary to come run their practice.

I told them I could not possibly entertain accepting their offer, as I just took a new job with the local personal injury law firm in town. After dinner, I went home and continued to work at the law firm. As it turned out and through no fault of the new employer, I really didn’t enjoy the personal injury work I was doing.

Therefore, after working at the new firm for a few months, I called the doctors back and asked them if they were serious about me running their medical practice.  They said they had a few glasses of wine that night and sort of remember the conversation.  They asked for a few days to talk about it and a week later called me and told me to come down to Bloomington, Indiana, to run their medical clinic.

When I told the attorneys who hired me at the personal injury firm that the medical practice was going to double my salary, they laughed a bit and wished me well.  I didn’t expect them to match that offer; and as I said, they were long-time family friends and they simply wanted the best for me.

When I moved down to Bloomington, Indiana, in January of 1998, my wife was pregnant with our first child and things were moving quickly.  The lady who was supposed to train me took six weeks of sick time and then quit.  I learned on the fly how to run the medical practice, which took a good six months.

As it turned out, I was a terrible manager of people; but I was a whiz with the finances.  Understand that I came out of a litigation practice where I went to war every day with other attorneys on behalf of my clients (especially the divorces I used to work on).  Then suddenly I ended up running a medical clinic with thirteen female employees who worked under an office manager who really did not give much direction.

Needless to say, I did a very poor job of managing the staff the first six months.  The finances of the office, on the other hand, were another matter.  Since I had no faith in the previous office manager, I decided to shop every vendor the medical practice used to see if I could save the office some money.

As it turned out, I saved the four-physician medical office over $35,000 in expenses my first year. On what? Health insurance, malpractice insurance, office supply purchasing, outside professional help, collections expenses, overtime, and I successfully helped negotiate a very difficult purchase of the medical office building the practice rented.

After about six months, I had things in the office the way I wanted them from a financial point of view.  While I did not always get along with the staff, I have to give them their due in that most of them were top-notch and did a tremendous job in their particular specialty.  What that left me with, however, was a dilemma.

After fixing the office financially, and because the staff did not require much oversight from me, I had a tremendous amount of free time on my hands.  I could run the medical office for what I needed to do as a manager in two to four hours or less each day.  Remember that in the practice of law I used to have 25+ clients all wanting something from me, and now I was running a medical office with less than 20 employees.  If I didn’t come to work for weeks on end, the office would run just fine.

The physicians at the medical office knew I would get to the point of being bored and thought I would open up a small legal practice out of the medical office or that I would play golf every day.  Instead of doing either, I decided to research in extraordinary detail “advanced” planning for high-income/net-worth clients (which were my physician employers).

People wonder how I was able to create three advanced education/certification courses with over 1,200 pages of text and two books by the age of 37.  It’s really not that I’m any brighter than anyone else or anyone reading this book.  It’s that, due to the extraordinary circumstances of my employment at the medical practice, I was able to spend two-and-a-half years researching: asset protection, income, estate and capital gains tax planning/reduction, corporate structure, advanced estate planning, long-term care, disability and life insurance, annuities, mortgages, on the list goes on and on.

After my research on a topic, I would write an article on it and get it published in any number of places including, but not limited to the following: Orthopedics Today, Physician Money Digest, Physician’s News Digest, MomMD, American Urological Association Newsletter, Today in Cardiology, The Rake Report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, The CPA Journal, CPA Wealth Provider,  Strategic Orthopaedics, General Surgery News, the Indiana Bar Journal, the OH CPA Newsletter, Financial Planning Magazine, and Insurance Selling Magazine.

Then I started doing educational seminars for the following organizations (not an exhaustive list): Indiana State Medical Association, Ohio State Medical Association, Academy of Medicine of Cincinnati, Mid-America Orthopaedic Association, the MI, OH, IN, and KY CPA Societies, Professional Association of Health Care Office Management (PAHCOM), BONES, the American Academy of Medical Management, TX Medical Group Management Association (TX MGMA), Texas Medical Association Insurance Trust (TMAIT), the Michigan Orthodontics Association, the National Funeral Home Directors Association, the Society of Financial Service Professionals, the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, and more.

After awhile, you have enough content from articles and speaking engagements to write a book; so I wrote my first book, The Doctor’s Wealth Preservation Guide.

MOVING ON FROM THE MEDICAL PRACTICE

While at the medical practice, I started two separate consulting companies─one company where I would provide advice to physicians and one company to work with advisors who wanted help with their physician clients.

As it turned out, I made enough money from the side consulting businesses to allow myself to try consulting full time.  By then my wife was pregnant with our second child; and since the family didn’t visit us much in Bloomington, Indiana, we also wanted to move back to Michigan so we could be closer to the entire family.

That’s just what we did in the spring of 2000.  My wife, daughter, and soon-to-be son moved back to my home town of St. Joseph, Michigan, where I worked with my two companies to help physicians with asset protection, estate and tax planning, and advisors who had physicians or other high-income/net-worth clients who needed help.

The good news is that I was making a good living with my two consulting companies. The bad news is that after awhile I became miserable.  I don’t want to sound like I was crying with a loaf of bread under my arm; but I was traveling a lot to visit clients and advisors around the country, as well as doing several seminars, and I was getting worn out.  It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it; but with two young children, I was looking for a business model that would let me go to the kids’ ball games, go to the pool, and work in the yard (although I despise yard work).

THE LIGHT BULB GOES ON

I was in Las Vegas in 2004 giving a seminar for the National Society of Accountants (NSA) when the light bulb finally went on for me. A friend of mine, Lance Wallach (who introduced me to the NSA), and I were out to dinner in between the days of the seminar; and I was complaining to him about how I was making decent money but that I was really getting worn out.  I basically had made the decision that I needed to do something else, and I was even considering going back to practicing law (it’s hard to even type that and see it in print).

Lance told me to stop complaining and then off the cuff said: “Roccy, what you need to do is to create your own Roccy-certification course.  You need the school of Roccy.” 

Of course, he was making fun of me, which I’m sure I deserved; but he was onto something and didn’t know it.  Lance had heard me speak many times and read my book The Doctor’s Wealth Preservation Guide.  As someone “in the industry,” he knew that the topics I dealt with in my book and speak about at seminars are fairly unique and that other advisors who have or want to have high-income/net-worth clients would like to learn these topics.

Like the day I decided to take the job running the medical practice, that day in Vegas was again one of those days in your life you look back on and see it as life altering.

I went home from the Vegas NSA seminar and thought about putting my own educational program together.  I figured I could put the program together with no problem.  I had a lot of content and some of the best experts in the country who were nice enough to let me bend their ear on advanced-planning topics.  The question was: Could I make a living doing “education”?

I said to myself that it really didn’t matter as I didn’t want to continue traveling like I was, no matter how much money could be made.  Therefore, I told my wife that I was changing courses; and I hoped for everyone’s sake it would work out.  I decided to put together what I now call the only “advanced” education/certification courses in the country where I educate CPAs/EAs/accountants, attorneys, financial planners, mortgage brokers, security traders, etc., advanced planning for high- income/net-worth clients.

I formed my own educational institute with an educational board of some of the country’s best experts in their fields.

The three courses are the Certified Wealth Preservation Planner (CWPP™), Certified Asset Protection Planner, (CAPP™), and Master Mortgage Broker (MMB™).  Each course requires advisors to read over hundreds of pages of text, take a lengthy multiple-choice/true-false test and pass an essay test.  The essay test confirms to me that the advisors who take the courses not only understand the material, but can apply it in the “real world.”

I rolled the CWPP™ and CAPP™ courses out in 2005 and have had a nice steady flow of advisors sign up to take the courses online or in person.  In 2007, I finally rolled out the MMB™ course (which educates more fully on Home Equity Management).

I’m proud to say that the reviews from those who have taken the courses have been tremendous.  I image that is the case not so much because I’m that great of a writer of the material, but because the material is practical and usable in the real world (vs. esoteric educational material), and because the majority of the topics in the courses are new to those who take them. No other entity in the country provides unbiased education on asset protection, which is the foundation of the three certification courses.

My travel has been severely curtailed as I only put on about six in-person seminars a year; and I get to do what I’ve found I’m best at, which is to help other advisors fashion solutions for their clients. Therefore, it seems that the move from full-time consulting to educating advisors and working with their clients has turned out to be a good move for me, my family, and those who have taken my courses.

RECENT NEWS

As the certification courses continue to get traction nationwide, I am always searching for the next challenge.  I found that next challenge when I decided to form a new society called the Asset Protection Society (APS™) (www.assetprotectionsociety.org).

I finally got tired of all the asset-protection “scammers” in the marketplace who were luring unsuspecting clients to do business with them only to have the clients find out that the services they purchased were worthless and usually far too expensive.

I formed the APS™ with a handful of other like-minded advisors with one overriding goal and that was to form an organization that would protect the public.  It’s a tough chore and one that will take time to accomplish, but I believe it is a worthwhile cause.

The APS™ is a place where the public can receive baseline education on how to protect assets from creditors (like the personal injury attorneys I used to work for).  In addition, the APS™ will “Rate” advisors on their knowledge of what I call “global asset protection.”

My definition of global asset protection is that anyone or anything that can take your money is a creditor.  Think about that for a second.  Who is your number one creditor every year?  The IRS.  Is the stock market a creditor?  Sure. Did you lose money in the stock market in 2000-2002 when it lost nearly 50% of its value?  What about the costs of long-term care? Is that an expense that will take your money in retirement?  Absolutely.

Because advisors have knowledge in different areas, the APS™ gives out either an A, AA, AAA, G, or O Rating.  G stands for global and O stands for offshore.

I wanted to create a Society that would set the “standard of care” in the industry for how to provide asset-protection advice, and I wanted the public to feel comfortable going to the Society to look for help from “Rated” advisors.  I believe the APS™ is such a place, and I look forward to having it grow over the coming years with the help of all of its members and State Representatives.

If you are interested in asset-protection or finding an advisor who can help you, please check out the Society on the web.

THE END

By the end, I mean that the end of my overly long summary of my background.  I probably made this section of the book too long, but I figure if you are not interested in the whole story, you can flip through it or skip it.  I know that when I talk with people these days, they seem interested in the whole story so I thought I would put it in the book.

The end of the story is really the beginning of this new book, The Home Equity Management Guidebook.

As you now know, the reason I felt compelled to write this book is because of the other books in the marketplace that deal with this subject matter in a pure sales manner vs. a full-disclosure educational manner. Throughout the book, I will point to where this book differs from the sales books, and I’ll let you decide for yourself who is making an attempt to sell you and who is making an attempt to educate you on the topics so you can make an informed decision on what is best for you.

HELP FROM THE AUTHOR

Invariably when you write books, you have a segment of readers who want to get in touch with the author to ask questions.  I understand that, and I will do my best to accommodate the inquiries. You can always e-mail me directly at info@thewpi.org.  I am usually fairly timely with my responses.  I will be able to give you a brief response, but then I will probably forward you the name and contact number of an advisor in your local area who has taken one of The Wealth Preservation Institute’s certification programs.  That way I know you’ll be working with an advisor who knows the subject matter and has agreed to abide by the Ethics Code of the Institute.

(End of this excerpt from the forward of The Home Equity Management Guidebook.  This book is available for purchase at a discount while it awaits publication by a major publisher.)

The WPI mission is to educate insurance advisors, CPAs, EA, accountants, financial planners, attorneys and real estate brokers/agents on the above listed topic so the best possible advice can be given to help clients who have a net worth in excess of $2,500,000 or have an annual income of at least $200,000.

Far too often, our best clients receive poor advice that puts their personal and business assets at risk, allows them to pay too much in income or estate taxes, and does not accomplish in a timely manner the ultimate goal of most clients, which is to retire early with no worries about losing capital.

High net worth clients today do not have a central advisor who knows “all” the basic “advanced” planning tools so a complete asset protection, estate, and financial plan can be implemented. While the team approach to planning is certainly important, most people on the team do not know (in a detailed manner) the majority of the topics covered in the CWPP™ or CAPP™ course.

Due to the knowledge a CWPP™ or CAPP™ will obtain while going through the certification course, he/she will be in the best position to be the “team” leader to make sure a client is completely asset protected, pays as little as possible for income and estate taxes, and has the ability to retire without the worry of losing their assets to poor investments.

Therefore, not only will the certification course be an educational tool to help advisors become more well rounded, but the course will allow advisors to increase either their billable hour income and/or commission income.

The motto of a CWPP™ or CAPP™ is the “client’s interest always comes first” (regardless of how that advice affects the income of the advisor).

The WPI mission is to educate insurance advisors, CPAs, EA, accountants, financial planners, attorneys and real estate brokers/agents on the above listed topic so the best possible advice can be given to help clients who have a net worth in excess of $2,500,000 or have an annual income of at least $200,000

Far too often, our best clients receive poor advice that puts their personal and business assets at risk, allows them to pay too much in income or estate taxes, and does not accomplish in a timely manner the ultimate goal of most clients, which is to retire early with no worries about losing capital.

High net worth clients today do not have a central advisor who knows “all” the basic “advanced” planning tools so a complete asset protection, estate, and financial plan can be implemented.   While the team approach to planning is certainly important, most people on the team do not know (in a detailed manner) the majority of the topics covered in the CWPP™ or CAPP™ course.

Due to the knowledge a CWPP™ or CAPP™ will obtain while going through the certification course, he/she will be in the best position to be the “team” leader to make sure a client is completely asset protected, pays as little as possible for income and estate taxes, and has the ability to retire without the worry of losing their assets to poor investments.   

Therefore, not only will the certification course be an educational tool to help advisors become more well rounded, but the course will allow advisors to increase either their billable hour income and/or commission income.

The motto of a CWPP™ or CAPP™ is the “client’s interest always comes first” (regardless of how that advice affects the income of the advisor).