The Community Foundation of Eastern Shore (CFES) hosted a continuing education event for local financial planners in which our financial planning students participated. The professional advisor continuing education series was held at the CFES office on Belmont Ave, Salisbury on Wednesday, May 5, 2025, from 12:30 p.m. until 4 p.m.
Students attended the sessions that included
- The Markets Going Forward—Russell’s View, Russell Investments
- Estate Planning Strategies, Nationwide
- Direct Indexing, Natixis
Dr. Ani Mathers who serves in the CFES Investment committee setup this opportunity for our students could participate. Dr. Shine Lei, Director of the Financial Planning program coordinated so that the students could benefit from learning, interacting from the financial planning professionals.
The following seven students attended this informative event William Adkins, Fionn Casey, Adam Dopkowski, Edward Kennedy, Stephanie Marinucci, Eleni Milligan, and Quinn Sutker. Students appreciated the opportunity to learn the industry insights from the professionals. The event was very informative. They also learned the career stories from the CFP professionals.
Ms. Sharon L. Dickson, CPA, Vice President of Community Investing at CFES made these observations. “Thank you so much for your great idea to include the students in the program yesterday – we were so pleased to have them join us! It would be fantastic to continue that connection for future events. And Mike Truitt was inspired to have a brief panel discussion at the end of the event for the students to ask questions of the professionals in the room.
As a mom of a college student, I know this is a busy time of year for students. We appreciate them spending the afternoon with us and wish them great success in their careers!”
One of the students, Quinn Sutker says
“The Financial Planning Educational Event held by the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore provided invaluable real-world insights to us financial planning students. We were able to learn from a handful of experts on topics such as estate planning, tax planning, and various tax advantaged investment methods. We also got the privilege of sitting in on a 2025 quarter 1 market and economy review from a representative at Russell Investments.
It was interesting to learn how one aspect of planning, such as estate planning, has direct correlations to tax planning and the importance of looking at the client in a bigger picture to ensure that their life goals are aligned with the financial planning provided by their advisor.
The world of finance can get very complicated very quickly, but each speaker did a great job of explaining the topics and providing evidence and real-world data to back their claims and reasonings.
It was also very interesting to experience first-hand the types of continuing education that CFPs and CPAs have to participate in yearly to keep their accreditations.
I want to extend my gratitude to the various professionals that stayed after the presentations to offer advice to us students and answer some of our questions about the industry, I can confidently say that it reaffirmed my passion for working in financial planning. I also want to thank the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore for hosting us. I hope it is something that becomes a regular occurrence as I have no doubt it will continue to provide great learning opportunities for the financial planning students of Salisbury University.”