Mike Vickerman Jr., founder of Vickerman Investment Advisors Inc., says his constant mantra to his clients for the last 27 years is a reminder to live within their means.

“Even though we work with what is considered wealthy people … money can be an interesting thing. It can change people,” says Vickerman. “We really focus as a team on trying to be that steadfast adviser.”

Vickerman, a certified public accountant and the firm’s president and chief investment officer, says he’s always adjusting his clients’ custom financial models and considering the wider impacts of national and worldwide events. 

In 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, he decided the company—then Vickerman & Driscoll Financial Advisors Inc.—needed more back-office support and merged it with Spokane-based Ten Capital Wealth Advisors LLC, a partnership that lasted for only a year.

“I missed being an entrepreneur. I missed leading a firm,” he says. “I really loved decision making around investments, so that’s why I decided to come back.”

Now that Vickerman is back to leading his own company, he is focused on teaching the next generation of advisers. He has restructured Vickerman Investment Advisors to a team model, as opposed to every adviser having their own clients, a framework that he says allows him to serve clients better while passing on his knowledge to his younger colleagues.

“We’re really focused on finding that next generation to transition so we can stay local as Vickerman Investment Advisors, and that’s not easy,” he says. “We’ve got a great start; it’s about finding great people.” 

Vickerman Investment Advisors offices are located on the sixth floor of the Legion Building, at 203 N. Washington, in downtown Spokane. The company manages $350 million in assets for 300 households, Vickerman says. He declines to disclose its projected annual revenue.

The company’s five-person staff consists of three senior investment advisers, a client services specialist, and a marketing and community liaison. Chris Grasmick is a partner and managing director in addition to his role as a senior investment adviser. Vickerman Investment Advisors also contracts two compliance and billing professionals based in Seattle. During the spring and summer months, the company hires a paid intern.

Vickerman originally founded the practice with another CPA and friend, Kevin Driscoll. When the accounting firm they worked for was liquidated, they were encouraged by family friends to use their expertise as accountants to manage investments. A plan was hatched on Thanksgiving weekend, and in January 1996, they launched Vickerman & Driscoll Financial Advisors. They worked together until 2019 when Driscoll retired.

“That CPA background really helps create a niche for us,” Vickerman says. “We do a lot of tax analysis that most advisers don’t do for their clients, and that leads to helping them with estate planning.”

Vickerman says the company uses a fundamental investment approach, which is in large part based on evaluating the financial statements that CPAs create for companies. Vickerman advisers use those documents to determine which companies are doing well and are a good fit for investing clients’ money.

The advisers at Vickerman build custom models based on equity and fixed income for their clients. Vickerman describes the process like building a house with certain investments as the foundation and building upon that. The portfolio is customized to the degree of risk each client is willing to accept, which then allows the advisers to show their clients how their portfolio will perform within six-month periods of time. It is also compared to the company’s “my bucket system” that shows the client’s distribution rate in their retirement years that is within the mid-4% range, he says.

“In our business, what’s really interesting is the economy and risk is always changing,” he says. “You constantly need to adjust your models to account for those changes.”

The standard management fee structure that Vickerman collects from clients is 1% for the first $1 million in management. Amounts from $1 million to $3 million are charged a fee of 0.75% and anything over $3 million is 0.5% percent, he says. Fees are calculated on an annual basis.

The company offers a full-service program for clients with over $500,000 in assets, and a buckets program for people with assets under that threshold. The buckets system has a 0.5% fee and is designed to get younger people involved and help them grow their assets.

After separating from Ten Capital in 2021, Vickerman set out to rebuild his practice from his basement. When Driscoll was his partner, the duo made it a priority to donate to charities in the community, he says. However, he also wanted to be able to donate time. While rebuilding the company, his wife, Michelle, joined as the marketing and community liaison. With her lead, Vickerman has started getting involved in the community through service events. Most recently, Vickerman clients have also joined in community events.

“Michelle has been integral in getting us involved in the community through service events,” he says. “You get to know clients just a little more on a personal level, and they get to know us at a personal level when we’re out picking up trash on the Spokane River with Spokane Riverkeeper.”

Vickerman grew up on Spokane’s South Hill, where his parents owned a pizza parlor that failed while he was in high school. His passion for finance and helping others stay within their means stems from experiencing the emotional and financial toll that this event had on him and his family, he says. He and his sister both went on to become accountants as a result.

“That was something that really resonated with my sister and me,” he says. “It created a burning passion within both of us, but definitely inside me to never have to see people go through that. So, we both became CPAs because we didn’t know many CPAs that didn’t have jobs.”

As he prepares the next generation of advisers, Vickerman, 55, says he plans to continue building models and helping clients live within their means for as long as he has the mental capacity to do so.