Professional Focus and Services
Reuben will help you:

• Reach your financial goals (rather than beat the market);
• Put your investments in line with your values;
• Do it within a reasonable timeline;
• Do it without taking excessive risk.

Together, we begin by discussing and identifying your goals. Using a detailed appraisal outline, Reuben will get your agreement on where you need planning help.

We don’t just check your assets and advise you on investments. After looking at your life and your aspirations, as well as your assets, Reuben suggests how you might make changes to bring greater financial stability and abundance. We look at your life choices, identify where there is incongruity between your choices and financial success—and suggest ways to remedy this. Fees are either hourly or an annual percentage of money managed (1%–2.5%).

Professional Affiliations

• Network Adviser: First Affirmative Financial Network
• Custodial Affiliation: Charles Schwab and Co.
• Member: Social Investment Forum
• Member: Co-op America
• Member: Financial Planning Association

Education and Experience
Reuben’s first professional life was in applied educational research. He attained the Ph.D. (Psychology and Education) at the University of Michigan, 1973. While pursuing this graduate degree, he consulted and advised Ann Arbor public school teachers in the throes of starting new teaching/learning projects. He helped them decide what outcomes really mattered, how to measure success and what would be acceptable progress along the way. He does this now in the financial planning context. His business experience started with an education program evaluation company, Effective Feedback Inc. (founder and principal), 1970–75.

He then expanded his lifelong attraction to bicycling with Freewheel Express, a bicycle messenger service (sole proprietor), 1976–1982. At the same time, Reuben was teaching bicycling and writing a weekly cycling column in his city’s newspaper. He managed a bicycle shop from 1982–83.

Reuben entered the investment profession at First Investors Corporation as a registered representative, 1984–90. He was licensed to sell managed investments (Series 6), health and life insurance. Reuben joined Walnut Street Securities and First Affirmative Financial Network in 1992 as a registered representative. His practice evolved to a fee-only basis in 1999 and he became an agent of First Affirmative Financial Network, LLC, a registered investment advisor.

Community Involvement
Reuben has actively built community through bicycling activities. He was a founder of the Ann Arbor Bicycle Touring Society and an organizer (and a top fundraiser) for the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor Bike-a-Thon. He was appointed to the City of Ann Arbor Bicycling Coordinating Committee and chaired the Committee when it produced that city’s Bicycle Transportation Plan. He was one of the first certified instructors of Effective Cycling and has trained over 200 cyclists through community education courses. He taught bicycle safety to hundreds of bicyclists during many of the annual Pedal Across Michigan week-long rides.

Reuben believes that sustainable agriculture is essential to preserving our farmland and connecting people to each other around getting their food. He was an apprentice farmer and then a board member of the Community Farm of Ann Arbor. He is now organizing a farm market in Empire and continues to be an avid organic gardener. He is an active member of a community-supported farm in Leelanau County (MeadowLark Farm). He was a founding member of the first board of the Peoples Food Co-op of Ann Arbor and is now a member of Oryana Food Co-op in Traverse City.

As a pacifist who chooses nonviolence as the active conflict strategy, Reuben counseled conscientious objectors in Ann Arbor during the ‘60s and was an intern at Acts for Peace in Berkeley, CA to rouse the San Francisco Bay Jewish Community in 1960.

Disclaimer
Investment Advisory Representative of First Affirmative Financial Network, LLC
First Affirmative Financial Network is an independent Registered Investment Advisor (SEC File #801-5687).Back to Top

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