BUCKS IN A ROW

If you grew up in Iowa in the 80’s, you practically knew all about walking beans before you knew anything about crawling between a beanbag and a sturdier piece of den furniture.

Ann Rieder was born in Ames, Iowa, and grew up on a Hawkeye State farm 50 miles due west in Scranton.

“Most farm kids walked beans in the summers,” Rieder says of walking up and down rows of soybeans with a bean hook and rooting out all weeds in the rows. “We’d be out there, my brothers ( Joe and Matt) and I, from sunrise to noon and then again in the evenings through late summer. It was how we learned work ethic.”

Pesky weeds vying for moisture and nutrients usually decrease a soybean yield.

Rieder, now 49 years old and living in Lake Bluff, has become adept at removing something completely different: the fear of financial planning. But the Certified Financial Planner™—and founder and president of Regatta Wealth Management in Lake Bluff—still uses a sharp tool to allay that trepidation for her clients.

Rieder’s trusty, two-pronged implement?

Her professionalism and quarter centuryplus of experience in a field far, far away from Iowan fields.

“I provide advice to my clients as they walk through a vast array of life events such as job transitions, sending kids to college, and planning for a successful retirement, to name a few,” says Rieder, who opened Regatta Wealth Management in 2015, and has a wealth of expertise in areas such as intergenerational wealth management, equity compensation plans for executives, and the unique financial needs of philanthropic organizations.

“One of the many rewards of what I do is having a client say, ‘I have a family member who could use your help. Would you please talk with them (sibling/parent/cousin) etc.. about their finances? Or help educate my child so they can get started on a solid financial path?’”

Regatta Wealth Management (RWM) focuses on strategic investment management with a personal approach to financial planning. RWM seeks to manage risk, invest with discipline, and ultimately preserve and protect investment assets.

The firm’s logo features a pair of oars. Those are a nod to Rieder’s competitive past. After running cross-country for Knights’ teams at Kuemper Catholic High School in Carroll, Iowa—when she wasn’t playing the violin or making unassailable arguments in debate club—the middle child of Joe and Barbara Tilley competed for the crew team at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where she double-majored in Economics and Political Science.

Rieder then rowed, rowed, rowed her way to immediate success at Smith Barney in Des Moines, finishing in the top 10 percent of the firm’s threeyear Financial Advisor training program. She was in her late 20s when a higher-up asked her to consider joining the branch manager ranks at Smith Barney.

She was a national training officer in Hartford, Connecticut, before landing a position as a sales manager for a large branch in San Francisco. Nearly three years later, in 2006, Rieder found herself managing the Smith Barney branch in southwest suburban Orland Park.

Rieder spent a combined 15 years at Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, culminating her tenure as senior vice president and branch manager of a top private client and corporate services branch. At HighTower Advisors— her last stop before mooring Regatta Wealth Management in Lake Bluff—she served as a managing director and partner.

“I’m extremely grateful to be a part of the Lake Bluff community,” says Rieder, who’s been raising daughters Elizabeth (age 15) and Grace (13) in the tightknit village for 10 years. “It’s such a warm place to live, with wonderful people. It’s a Vespa-type of town.

“The friends we have made here are like family. I love everything about Lake Bluff.” The feeling’s mutual. In 2021 Rieder was elected to a four-year term as a Lake Bluff Park District commissioner.

Commissioner Rieder has something in common with a commissioner named Roger Goodell, who oversees the National Football League. Rieder is a member of the National Football League Players Association’s Registered Financial Advisors Program, which provides current and former NFL players with access to financial advisors who meet certain requirements and pass extensive background checks. It’s an elite group; Rieder is one of a handful of such members in Illinois. It’s also a band of human shields, protecting athletes—particularly vulnerable rookies—from fraud and poor money advice.

A mother of two, the president of Regatta Wealth Management, a park district commish, a holder of an NFLPA post … . Oh, and she also occasionally teaches personal finance to Chicago-area high school students through the Junior Achievement Financial Literacy program. Ms. Ann Rieder hasn’t been asked to simultaneously spin dozens of plates and juggle basketballs from a crowded rack, yet, but she’d certainly be game to give it a try.

“My kids are my No. 1 priority, no question,” Rieder says, adding Grace, an eighth grader at Lake Bluff Middle School, loves 1980s movies and aspires to be a lawyer, and Lizzie, an academic honors sophomore at Lake Forest High School, plays midfielder on the national level team of her lacrosse club. “I want to be there to support them, to cheerlead them on, in all their activities. Running Regatta Wealth Management has given me the flexibility to do that, all while still providing top service to my clients.

“They say time is the new wealth, the new luxury,” she adds. “I value my time with family and friends. ‘Surround yourself with good people’—that’s what I’ve told my daughters, because it has been the key to my life.”

Regatta Wealth Management is located at 10 East Scranton Avenue, Suite 301B, Lake Bluff. For more information about the firm, visit regattawm.com or call 847-604-4940.