Kelly Stuart Williams, MA
Instead of being raised a “coal miner’s daughter” from southwest Virginia, Kelly shares with people that her career in marketing and finance began as an “insurance agent’s daughter,” from Memphis, where she learned a lot about the importance of limiting liability, saving for contingencies, and planning to ensure a long, happy, and healthy lifestyle.
Kelly’s dad, John W. Stuart, Jr. was often the leading sales agent and top district manager for State Farm Insurance Company for whom he worked for 40 years. Long before his retirement, Mr. Stuart began working with estate attorneys, tax specialists and financial planners to create a wealth accumulation plan and trusts that would assist him and his wife enjoy their retirement in a manner in which they had grown accustomed. From their model, Kelly has developed an education campaign for Beacon Asset Management: www.preservingyourlifestyle.com
Eventually, both Mr. and Mrs. Stuart developed Alzheimers-type dementias, and Kelly became their primary caregiver and legal guardian. But she never had to worry about how she would pay for her parents’ care, because of their proactive planning and saving. The Stuarts wanted to be cared for in a home environment, and while long term care insurance was helpful; it was not enough to ensure that they “live in a manner in which they had grown accustomed,” Kelly was able to keep both of her parents at home safely and comfortably with her family and a team of in-home caregivers.
Concurrently, Kelly continued to pursue her career in marketing—with a passion for education, human services, and health care.
Kelly holds both a bachelors and a masters degree in the areas of marketing, graduate business administration, and public relations. In the private sector, Kelly has worked as the marketing director of a national bank in Memphis, the Executive MBA program at the University of South Florida (USF), and for Northwestern Mutual Financial Network in Tampa.
For nearly 15 years, Kelly worked in the public sector as the CEO of the Mental Health Association of Greater Tampa Bay, Director of Development at USF; and as a senior communications specialist for the U.S. federal government’s post-Columbine youth violence prevention initiative, Safe Schools/Healthy Students from where she retired in 2008.
Kelly approached Beacon Asset Management after the death of her mother in 2007 when she was looking for the same kind of proactive planning and wealth accumulation model that had worked so effectively for her parents. Beacon assisted Kelly by listening and honoring her conservative investing approach that helped her account weather the stock market crashes of 2008. Not only has Kelly’s account continued to grow, but she has greatly benefitted from Beacon’s creative investment approaches utilizing products seldom used by most financial advisors who are driven more by commissions than by account performance. Thus in 2008, Kelly decided not only to keep her account with Beacon, a fee-only investment advisor, but to return to the kind of career for which she was raised and educated: financial marketing for Beacon.
Kelly’s commitment to educating the public and expanding Beacon Asset Management’s client base has led her to create the www.preservingyourlifestyle.com blog and education campaign. Her “lifestyle” blog features advice from experts in the fields of living a long and healthy lifestyle.
Kelly hopes to assist others and herself to preserve and enhance their lifestyles through her work with Beacon