A hallmark of any good, reputable company is having longstanding customers who have been there since the early years. These enduring relationships stand as testaments to the quality of the company’s product and the level of service it provides. Today, we are very proud to highlight one such rep who has been with L.M. Kohn for almost three decades, Greg Burch of Lighthouse Agency Inc.
Greg was born and raised in Greater Cincinnati, receiving a degree in business management from the University of Cincinnati. He married at age 22 and knew he needed to get his career going to support his future family, so he started out working for a trucking company for a few years, then went on to work for Fifth Third Bank handling collections for its leased vehicle operations.
After several years, Greg realized that he didn’t want to work in banking for the rest of his life. Michael Yoakum and Gary Bass, friends from Greg’s church, approached him with the idea to handle 403(b) savings plans for school districts and colleges. To supplement, they would also provide life and health insurance to round out their offerings.
By this time in his life, Greg and his wife had a 3-year-old daughter and a newborn. While they didn’t have a lot of debt, and his wife’s full-time job provided income and insurance, it was still a considerable risk to leave a steady position and start his own business from the ground up. Luckily, his potential business partner Michael had started out on his own managing investments several years prior, and was able to offer essential mentorship in addition to recommending a partnership with L.M. Kohn as a broker-dealer.
With Michael’s mentorship and the expertise of L.M. Kohn to help him maintain compliance, along with his wife’s support and his personal faith in God, Greg decided to take the chance at starting out on his own.
“I felt that the Lord was leading me to take this step,” said Greg. “For the long term, I thought this would be better for me and my family to look forward and build something that we could keep for ourselves. And when I retired, I would have something to show for it. It gave me flexibility and I thought it was the right path to take. It was scary, but in the end, I think it paid off.”
For the next 28 years, Greg and his partners’ business slowly grew. They added property and casualty insurance, Medicare supplements, full automobile and commercial insurance. Several years ago, his partners wished to retire and Greg bought them out to become the sole principal of Lighthouse Agency, Inc. All the while, Greg has maintained his relationship with L.M. Kohn.
“I like L.M. Kohn because it’s independent and they don’t tell me where I need to invest customers’ money or use certain products,” said Greg. “They keep me out of trouble as far as compliance is concerned. They keep me in good standing with the SEC and FINRA. And they’re local, so I can always stop by if I need anything.”
Today, Greg has achieved the goal he identified in starting his own business 28 years ago. And as a testament to his own professional prowess, he still has customers that have been with him since the beginning. He and his wife have five grandchildren, which keep them busy. While he still enjoys his work and plans to continue for the foreseeable future, he plans to find a young, talented individual interested in learning his business who could one day take the reins of Lighthouse Agency Inc., and Greg plans to leverage L.M. Kohn’s succession planning abilities to help him find the right apprentice.
For more information about how L.M. Kohn can help you start your own financial practice, or plan to pass it along to the next generation, please contact us.
