A Message from the President:
My how things have changed in the past three months! For the first time in our lives we are working through a pandemic crisis. Emergency business plans have been initiated, and most of our staff is working remotely. Only our operations team stays on site on a daily basis.
We are experiencing a peculiar reaction to the pandemic – our business development activity has increased. I’m not sure if this activity is temporary, but normally business development stops during a crisis. My experience is that clients usually panic and do not want to change anything until conditions normalize. A big reason for the continued and increased activity is that many of you have shown confidence in us to handle wealth management issues that have arisen during this crisis, and you have contacted us to see if we can help. For that, we thank you for your confidence and for the opportunities to help you.
Certainly the efforts of our wealth management team have been extraordinary, as have been the efforts of many of your teams. We appreciate all the information that your teams of experts have shared with us and our mutual clients about the many law changes enacted in response to the pandemic. Thank you for your help! Let me highlight some of the extraordinary efforts our Prairie Trust and Waukesha State Bank Wealth Management teams have been undertaking.
Brian Cayon is our chief investment officer. He has been sending a weekly, and sometimes more frequent, investment updates. Our investment advice has been to not panic, stick to established asset allocation plans, rebalance as appropriate, strategically diversify out of concentrated holdings that have declined in value, and to harvest capital losses if available. Clients have appreciated the communication and increased investment activity.
Annette Klare manages our retirement plan services department. Our plan at the beginning of the year was to implement an upgrade in our recordkeeping platform. Quickly, our retirement plan and IRA team had to pivot in reaction to the law changes that occurred as a result of the year end SECURE Act and the CARES Act. All plan sponsors and IRA customers have been contacted regarding possible changes to the qualified plans and IRAs.
We hired Ron Jahnke last year to start a private banking service department. Little did we realize that within one year Ron would become our in-house expert on Paycheck Protection Program loans and Economic Injury Disaster loans. Ron has helped our commercial banking department process more than one thousand relief loans for small businesses in the Waukesha County area.
Personal trust administration continues to be our most significant service area. Despite the pandemic and extension of the filing date for income tax returns, almost all of our fiduciary income tax returns were prepared by the end of March. Our administration team has processed more than 1,800 discretionary distribution requests this year, resulting in more than $3,000,000 being paid to our beneficiaries. Our niche expertise in special needs trusts continues to result in new relationships, which Nancy Schoenberg services through both stand-alone trusts and pooled community trusts with Life Navigators. We have been named as successor trustee or personal representative for a number of individuals who have died this year. Diem Nguyen and her estate team have been able to provide immediate and timely estate settlement services during these very trying times. Outside investment advisers continue to contact us regarding the possible administration of directed and delegated trusts, and we have added accounts in this area as well during this time of crisis.
We appreciate the business you introduce us to and enjoy working with you and your clients. If you know of someone who would like to learn more about our services, please contact our Director of Fiduciary Sales, Terry Doyle, at (262) 953-2435 or tdoyle@waukeshabank.com. If there is anything else we can do to help you and your clients during these challenging times, please let us know.
Very truly yours,
