Do you know anyone on earth who grew up more advantaged than me? Certainly, there were many who had more money and I wasn’t on anyone’s “A list” for parties or other social connections. I did not grow up in a famous or even political family where others sought to ingratiate themselves to me by compliments and favors, hoping that they themselves would someday realize a benefit, simply because they were a “friend” of mine. By those standards, I was just about as ordinary as one can be. However, I was raised by a fiduciary.  

Any good dictionary will tell you that a fiduciary is a person who acts on behalf of another person or persons, putting other’s interests ahead of their own. It’s about duty, discipline and working to preserve good faith and trust. In business, being a fiduciary means being both legally and ethically bound to act in someone else’s best interest.

In my family, living the life of a fiduciary (though it was never called that) wasn’t just something that you do, it’s something that you are. Caldwell Trust Company was built on traits of courage, integrity, hard work, commitment, community involvement and investment along with many other desirable traits have been passed down from generation to generation on both sides of my family and remain to this day an integral part of who we are in life and in business.

As a child, an adolescent and even a young adult I never considered that the principles I was being taught were the very definition of a fiduciary.  All my parents wanted for me and my siblings was for us to be happy. They wanted us to grow into successful adults, following whatever path we might choose. Their only desire (and expectation) was for us to be the best we could be. They taught us the importance of developing personal traits of success and then to apply them in a life of service that would lead to happiness.

Working with my father in business was exciting as well as challenging. Everything he and the early staff did was done with absolute integrity. But everything was done in the old school way, meaning with pencil and paper and very little technology. In the early days, there just wasn’t much technology being used by anyone in the industry. Dad, however, could see a change coming and knew that I was just the guy who could first adopt, then adapt and even create the proprietary technology that would set us apart from others. 

As important as our unique and proprietary technology is, there is still something even more important that makes our client relationships special. From one generation to the next, we keep our promises.

With Caldwell Trust Company, promises made by my Father are promises that I have kept and will continue to keep. Indeed, they are promises that will be kept for generations to come. Our Mission: https://www.ctrust.com/about-us 

Read the Caldwell Trust Company BrandStory HERE