New Arrivals And Assignments

The Palisades Hudson team got bigger, broader and deeper in 2017 as veteran staffers moved into new management roles and took charge of more territory while newcomers expanded our ranks.

ReKeithen Miller became the manager in charge of our Atlanta office — the position known internally as “station chief” — succeeding senior manager Rebecca Pavese. The move allows Rebecca to do a substantial part of her work from her home in Atlanta’s northern suburbs, the better to attend the many sports events in which her two adolescent daughters participate. She will also continue to perform part of her work in the Atlanta office, to which she and ReKeithen both transferred when it opened in 2008.

Rebecca began her career with the firm in Hastings on Hudson, New York, in 2000, immediately after graduating from college, and remained in the New York office when it relocated to Scarsdale in 2002. ReKeithen joined Palisades Hudson in the Fort Lauderdale office in 2007 after graduating from the University of Florida. He became a client service manager in 2011.

Stephen Grady III became the first member of the Palisades Hudson staff to hold the title of financial planning manager when his promotion took effect this autumn. He had previously been a financial planning assistant, responsible for internal production functions mainly in the tax and investment management areas of the business. Stephen helped to create the FPA position, and in his new role, he will be responsible for supervising newer FPAs, as well as helping to train client service associates. A New York native, Stephen joined the firm in Atlanta in 2012.

Two new client service associates joined the firm in the Stamford, Connecticut, office last summer. Jeremy Dym came to Palisades Hudson from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he had been an associate in the tax department. But his newcomer status comes with an asterisk, because Jeremy’s twin brother Aaron was a Palisades Hudson intern in the summer of 2014. A New Jerseyan, Jeremy holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from Binghamton University in New York.

Max Klein joined the Stamford office staff directly after graduating from Ithaca University with a degree in business administration, concentrating in finance. Having grown up in Brookfield, Connecticut, Max promptly made himself at home in Stamford’s trendy downtown district, where many new apartment towers are rising near the office complex where we relocated from Scarsdale at the start of 2017.

Our Colorado-based staff tripled, with one promotion and two new hires. Aline Pitney, who had been an administrative associate since 2015, was promoted to financial planning assistant, as was her immediate replacement, Mandi Garrison. Ashley Drayer then came aboard to fill Mandi’s place in the administrative slot. All three of the Coloradans have preschool children, and they find it convenient to work from their homes in the Denver suburbs. Veteran manager Ben Sullivan serves as their station chief from his base in Austin, Texas, while Stephen Grady assigns and supervises much of Mandi’s and Aline’s day-to-day work.

There also were some less formal additions to the Palisades Hudson family, including Melinda Kibler’s daughter Collins this summer, soon followed by David Walters’ son Samuel. The latest arrival is Ashley Drayer’s son Kanon, who made his debut in October.

This continued a firmwide baby boom that has been going strong for several years. There are solid projections that the uptrend in this particular market will continue in 2018.

From the youngest staff (and auxiliary staff) to the grayhaired codger who started it all, we wish our friends and clients a happy, healthy and successful New Year.