Clint is committed to serving his community in arguably the most confidential part of our lives, with the primary mission of assisting his clients in preparing for and attaining their financial goals. He is committed to providing value to his clients by relying upon a wide and diverse background.
Having been raised in an Appalachian coal-mining community on the border of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, he learned to work hard from a young age on his uncle’s cattle farm. At his father’s advice, he studied as hard as he worked and graduated as the valedictorian of his high school class. His dad also convinced him that the future for the coal industry was bearish and sent him off to college, where he graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Tennessee, followed by a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, he volunteered to join the U.S. Navy and served as a Submarine Warfare Officer for five years, most of which was aboard the Los Angeles-class fast-attack boat USS Augusta. This experience was remarkable in that he finally learned the common sense that books alone could never provide. He then spent the next eight years working in the U.S. manufacturing industry, focusing on productivity improvement, and reached the milestone of Plant Manager for a Fortune 500 company. This experience helped him learn “don’t let best get in the way of better” and that the fastest pathway to continuous improvement is empathetic listening.
Meanwhile, the 2008 financial crisis led him to become a self-taught student of economics, hoping to learn how he could help prevent another similar financial event from falling upon his community. During this time, he believes he studied every foundational economic theory work that has been written. Finally, in 2016, he was offered the opportunity to turn this newfound desire to master the art of economics—which, being the study of human action, can never be completely solved—into his full-time profession, seeing it as the ultimate challenge.
Over the years, he has developed and implemented sophisticated quantitative processes with a specialty in risk management for moderately risk-averse clients who prefer to delegate money management to him. Additionally, he continues to fine-tune and improve the primary engagement activity using his comprehensive financial planning and risk mitigation process. He has a lot to say on these subjects, and you can follow what’s on his mind at the www.chedesterfinancial.com blog page.
He and his wife, Demetra, have two sons, John and Mark. They spend their spare time at their church, in a vegetable garden, and collecting eggs—and eating them—from their chicken and duck flock.
