Features January 2018

It’s hard enough fully entrusting a 16-year-old with keys to the car, let alone those to the family restaurant. And then relying on them to actually run the place. Paula Pienkowska wasn’t most 16-year-olds. Maybe it was the hardworking, entrepreneurial parents, who’d arrived from Poland just four years earlier. Or something more ingrained, perhaps—an inclination […]

The workplace of the future—and for progressive companies, the future is now—is one with no barriers among colleagues. It’s a physical or virtual office of synergy and a free flow of ideas. A place where you walk up to a kiosk, sign in on a tablet and take the open desk or huddle room of […]

Martijn Tel breaks down financial executives into three categories. First, there are what he calls blue-collar executives, who wade, elbow-to-elbow with their accounting team, into the thick of balancing the books and compiling reports. These executives are often a necessity for scrappy startups. Then, there are the white-collar CFOs—typically found at larger companies—who focus on […]

Back in his days at the University of Kansas, Pentegra’s CIO Scott Stone had a professor who laid out what he called “the first three rules of investment finance”. Rule one: Get the cash. Rule two: Get the darn cash. Rule three: Get the darn cash now. Although Stone cautions that the reality of the […]

A one-time shopping fixture in Mason City, Iowa, the Kmart on Fourth Street Southwest announced in January 2014, that its liquidation sale would be a couple of weeks later, with the doors closing by spring. The news set off the usual unpleasantries that accompany a major store’s demise, with local officials bemoaning the loss of […]

In the era where the phrase “financial services” conjures up images of shadowy conglomerates, First National Bank is a refreshing reminder that banking can be local and community-minded. Headquartered in Damariscotta, Maine, First National Bank has been in town since 1864. More than 150 years later, it has 16 branches throughout Maine and over $1.5 […]

Whether you’ve scrimped and saved or spent without worry, meeting with a financial advisor for the first time can be an intimidating experience, where even the savviest of minds feels lost amidst the lexicon of asset bases, dividends and deferral options. Never is this feeling keener than with one query especially: How does this person […]

Douglas M. Loudon’s quarterly report to clients and friends (available on the firm’s website), attests that in addition to being an accomplished investment manager, he’s also a wordsmith, one capable of putting the complexities of finance in lay terms. But the founder of the small, but thriving, firm that bears his name in the quaint […]

In addition to beaches and year-round sunshine, San Diego is recognized as one of the largest life sciences centers in the world, based on the city’s abundance of independent and university-affiliated research institutes. Integrated into this innovative ecosystem is the California research site of Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company Limited, a global bio-pharmaceuticals company with 30,000 employees […]

The investment world can be intimidating—even indecipherable—for many people. All those shifting indexes and charts; rising and falling percentage points; trusts, estates and tax brackets; acronyms galore. But Jessamyn Norton finds it both fascinating and invigorating. The chief investment officer and senior vice president and principal for Portland, Maine-based Spinnaker Trust never tires of following […]