Our Roots
Bernie Waters launched Professional Planning Associates in 1953 as a life insurance company. An early pioneer in financial planning, Bernie supported a holistic approach, stressing the importance of client relationships.
Over the years, Bernie's family joined the business, helping it grow into a financial planning and employee benefits firms. All along, PPA's foundation focused on treating clients like family and positioning them for success.
Bernie passed away in 2018, but his legacy lives on through PPA's philosophy, responsiveness, and knowledge.
Where We Are Today
PPA focuses on providing comprehensive business and individual financial and insurance services. Our team of trusted advisors has the experience, education, and certifications, which help them provide strong recommendations and advice.
The PPA team is also dedicated to honoring Bernie's legacy of responsiveness, care, and creativity, treating each client like family.
How This Helps You
The foundation built by Bernie and maintained over the years allows us to work with you on developing a holistic plan, one that provides a complete picture of your current financial or business circumstances. This information helps you make the right decisions to meet your goals and realize your dreams.
Our process also rests on our knowledge of investments, as well as a macro approach – taking into account the economy, current political situations, and markets. The result is a strategy to proserve your assets and wealth for today, and to pass on your legacy to future generations.
Parent Company: Cetera Financial Group
Cetera Advisors is part of the family of independently managed firms of Cetera Financial Group (Cetera). For the past 30 years. Cetera's family of companies has grown to manage over $110 billion in client assets, delivering advisory products and solutions and sophisticated trading and technology platforms to us and other advisors across all 50 states. You can be confident that their tools, technology and support help make us more effective in our relationship with you.
Our Custodian: Pershing
While a broker-dealer helps supervise and facilitate the trading that converts your cash into invested assets, those assets are actually held by a custodian. Cetera Advisors works with two custodians. Pershing LLC custodies brokerage accounts, including the brokerage accounts within IRAs.
Pershing is a subsidiary of the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, which is the nation's oldest continuously operating bank and one of the world's leading providers of securities services. Both Pershing and Cetera Investment Services have to meet certain net capital requirements and are subject to regular audits, both internally and by independent firms, to ensure the appropriate handling, segregation and protection of investors' assets.