Our Mission

Our Client Experience

2019 Market Review

Our team has the experience and education to speak beyond pure trust and investments to become a true trusted advisor to the client across a variety of financial and wealth planning subjects.

We have helped clients manage through a wide range of situations including death and estate issues, divorce issues, college funding and charitable gifting. Beyond our expertise, we pride ourselves on the high level of communication, understanding and empathy we provide during these times.

Transparency is a key component of our philosophy. From easy to understand fees, open conversations on expectations, and a solid, disciplined investment strategy based on long proven principles, we assure that our clients understand what we do and how we do it.

As a fiduciary, our standards of client care, our responsibility to our client’s best interests, and even our legal duty to our clients are higher than many other financial service firms.

Our relationship with GreatBanc Trust allows us to provide the resources, operational oversight, and financial and business stability of a much larger company.

Please take a moment to read a message regarding the current COVID-19 Crisis from the CEO and President of GreatBanc Trust Company. Arboretum Wealth & Trust Management is a division of GreatBanc Trust.

Publications

In 1906, a gentleman named Francis Galton attended a farmer's fair and observed a contest guessing the weight of an ox. More than 800 guesses were registered, including both regular townspeople and livestock experts.

Amazingly, the collective average guess was only one pound less than the actual weight of 1,198 pounds and much closer than any of the livestock experts. He referred to this phenomenon as "The Wisdom of Crowds".

Securities prices are set by similar but much larger groups of people in the open market. Experts and amateurs both contribute their value guess in the form of purchases and sales.

How do we harness the wisdom of crowds to help you build a secure financial future?

Our professional staff also produces white papers covering subjects important to the work that we do.

Members of our team are also regular contributors to publications regarding our areas of expertise:

"Fiduciary Investing: Choose Prudence over Performance"

"Financial Planning for Every Stage of Life"

To our clients, our vendors, our advisors and our trusted partners:

I want to update you regarding how we are dealing with COVID-19 (coronavirus) and how it may impact our interactions with you.

As I have said before, the health, safety and well-being of our employees and our clients come above all-else. Over the past few months, we have followed the recommendations of top federal, state and local health officials in order to protect the health of our employees, our clients and our advisors. During the initial phase of the work from home order, our employees worked from the comfort and safety of their homes. In addition, we did not allow any employees to conduct business travel.

As Illinois moved into Phase III of the Restore Illinois plan, we began to allow a limited number of employees to return to our Lisle, Illinois office beginning Monday, June 8th. We published detailed Guidelines on our intranet site that explained what our expectations were for employees returning to the office. Since June 8th, we have averaged approximately 25% of our Lisle office workforce in the office each day. This cautious approach has allowed us to return employees to the office in an environment intended to provide for extreme social distancing. Our Guidelines required, among other things, that employees answer a health questionnaire and submit to temperature testing prior to entering the office each day. In addition, masks are always required to be worn when an employee is not at his or her workstation. Hand sanitizers are plentiful and expected to be used. We are limiting the number of employees allowed in common areas like conference rooms and break rooms. We continue to encourage the use of technology for client meetings and will allow for business travel in very limited instances.

As we move into Phase IV of the Restore Illinois Plan, we will begin to allow for even more employees to return to the office beginning Monday, June 29th. During Phase IV we expect that we will have approximately 40% to 50% of our Lisle personnel in the office each day. We believe we can comfortably maintain the appropriate social distancing requirements even with the increased number of people expected to return to the office. We anticipate maintaining that level of in-person attendance through Labor Day. After Labor Day we will evaluate whether and how to allow more employees back to the office. In addition, limited, pre-approved business travel will resume. All the while, we still intend to follow the Guidelines discussed above.

We will also ask all office visitors, including clients and prospective clients, to adhere to our Guidelines, including completion of questionnaires and temperature testing prior to entry and adherence to distancing and wearing of masks in common areas once inside.

I am providing you with this information because when the pandemic and subsequent shelter-in-place began we committed to maintaining our service to you in a seamless way at levels that you have grown accustomed. We hope we have met that goal, and we expect to continue to meet it as we transition even more of our staff back to the office.

I look forward to working with you in brighter days to come. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.

Best,

James Staruck
Chief Executive Officer and President

Please note that this link will open a new window on a separate and secure website.

We value client communication. In addition to informing you, open and informed conversations allow us to do the absolute best job for you.

We put together two regular publications. The first is our Market Update which provide a short and easy to understand overview of economic and market news. Depending on your level on interest, we put together weekly, quarterly, and annual versions of this update. This content is also further summarized in our video market updates.

Here is an example of one of our market updates:

Our video market updates are available here:

Our second publication is The Arboretum Almanac. A wide variety of topics are covered in this quarterly newsletter. Sometimes the topics relate directly to our work, but some of the information is more general. From college funding planning, when to apply for social security, to general educational topics on the economy, our clients have found this newsletter entertaining and helpful.

A Division of GreatBanc Trust Company

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The Arboretum Almanac

There was an article in the "weird news" section about a woman that left $100,000 to her three Cockatiels. A friend, knowing the business I am in, asked, "how does that work?" The money is left in a trust for the care of the birds, and a trustee is appointed by the trust document to manage the care of the birds using distributions from the trust. The follow up question was, "what keeps the trustee from taking all the money for themselves?" The answer is nothing really, but it can be prevented using a corporate trustee.

The lesson here is that picking the right trustee for your trust is probably the most important factor as to whether your trust works as you intended or not. Even if your beneficiaries aren't birds, what do you need to consider when looking for a responsible trustee?

Our firm offers a boutique trust and investment experience. Using efficient investment and operational processes, we deliver personal, customized service to our clients, including those considered too small by the larger competitors in our market.

Our trust and investment advisors are here to guide clients through volatile financial markets, tax law changes, complex investment options, family issues and estate planning choices. Our goal is to ensure long-term financial security and optimal investment performance for our individual clients, their families and future beneficiaries.

The management, protection and growth of personal assets are far less challenging with the assistance of a trusted fiduciary advisor. At Arboretum Wealth & Trust Management, we provide professional trust and estate administration, investment management and financial planning services.

We deliver sophisticated, comprehensive financial advice and truly conflict free investment management through a team that smaller competitors are simply unable to match in experience, education and resources.