Fee-only fiduciary · Alexandria, Virginia
When the engine quits, the rotor keeps turning.
Autorotation is how a helicopter lands safely with no power at all — on energy already stored in the rotor system before anything went wrong.
Retirement works the same way. The paycheck stops; what you stored has to carry you the rest of the way down. That’s the entire job, and it’s the only thing we do.
First
Invest.
Low-cost, globally diversified portfolios built around your actual timeline — not a model someone else picked. Held at an independent custodian in your name.
Then
Relax.
A written plan you can read in one sitting, reviewed on a set schedule. You should know what happens next in a bad market before it happens.
And
Accrue.
Tax-aware decisions across the whole picture — accounts, pension elections, insurance, estate documents — so the compounding isn’t quietly given back.
Who we serve
Careers with a hard stop need a different kind of plan.
Most planning advice assumes you work until you decide not to. A lot of careers don’t work that way — there’s a mandatory date, a medical, or a transition that arrives whether you’re ready or not.
Military and federal service
Pension election, TSP decisions, survivor benefit trade-offs, and multi-state residency questions that most advisers have never had to work through.
Professional pilots
Irregular income, unusually high contribution limits, and a career that depends on holding a medical certificate. The planning has to account for all three.
Households near the transition
Five years either side of the stop, when sequence risk matters most and the decisions you make are the hardest ones to undo.
How we work
Four steps, and you can stop after any of them.
Intro call
Thirty minutes. We find out whether this is a fit. No documents, no pitch, no follow-up sequence.
The picture
You share the statements and we build the honest current-state view — what you have, what it costs, where it’s exposed.
The plan
A written plan with the reasoning shown, not just the conclusions. You keep it whether or not you hire us.
Ongoing
Implementation, rebalancing, tax coordination, and scheduled reviews. Cancel in writing at any time.
Fees
Published, simple, and paid by you alone.
We are compensated only by our clients. No commissions, no revenue sharing, no referral fees from anyone whose products you might end up owning.
Ongoing management
Tiered
Annually, on assets managed
| Portion of assets | Annual rate |
|---|
- Each rate applies only to the assets within its tier, so your overall rate falls as your portfolio grows
- Portfolio construction and rebalancing
- Written plan, reviewed on a set schedule
- Tax-aware withdrawal sequencing
- Unlimited questions between reviews
Flat-fee planning
$4,800
Per year, no asset minimum
- For households whose assets sit in TSP or an employer plan
- Same plan, same reviews, no assets required
- Guidance on accounts we don’t manage
- Fee agreed in writing before any work begins
About
Why a helicopter term.
In an engine failure, a helicopter doesn’t fall. The pilot lowers the collective, lets the air coming up through the rotor keep it spinning, and trades that stored energy for a controlled landing. It only works if the rotor was already turning before anything went wrong.
That is the entire argument for planning. Nothing you do after the paycheck stops matters nearly as much as what you stored while it was still coming in. I spent a career teaching people to fly the maneuver.
Who you would be working with
Chris M. Pappe, Founder
I flew the MH‑65 for the Coast Guard, and spent much of that time as an instructor pilot and an examiner. That work is only partly about flying. Most of it is sitting beside someone on a hard day and working out which part of the procedure they don’t actually understand — then fixing that, rather than the symptom that showed up first. Planning turns out to be the same job with a different set of instruments.
The other half of my career was budgets. I managed appropriations at Coast Guard Headquarters, and served a fellowship on the House Appropriations Committee’s Homeland Security Subcommittee — the room where federal spending is actually written. I have read the fine print on how federal pay, benefits, and retirement systems are funded, from the inside of the process rather than a summary of it.
That combination is the reason this firm exists. Questions about the Blended Retirement System versus High‑3, what a continuation-pay election is really worth, whether the TSP should follow you out the door, how a pension changes the sequence you draw accounts down in — these are not topics I researched in order to serve a niche. They are decisions I have made, and watched colleagues make, under real deadlines.
I hold a BS in electrical engineering from the Coast Guard Academy and an MBA from Harvard Business School, and I completed the Senior Education and Fellowship Program at the U.S. Naval War College earning a Master of Arts in National Security & Strategic Studies. The engineering makes me suspicious of models that only work in one direction. The business school makes me suspicious of complexity that nobody can explain in a sentence. Both are useful habits in this line of work.
- BS Electrical Engineering, U.S. Coast Guard Academy
- MBA Harvard Business School
- MA National Security & Strategic Studies, U.S. Naval War College
- Legislative Fellow U.S. House Appropriations Committee
- Series 65 Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination
References to military service describe professional background only. They do not imply endorsement by, or affiliation with, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, or the Department of Defense.
Start with a conversation.
Thirty minutes, no documents, no obligation. If we’re not the right fit we’ll say so and point you somewhere better.
Schedule a 30-minute call