Alex Tapia didn’t always want to be a financial planner. Raised in The Netherlands, Tapia and his family came to the United States when he was 14 years old. Initially, he didn’t even speak English.
After developing a passion for aviation in high school, Tapia worked his way through flight school and college. After several years of continuing education and building hours as a flight instructor and an air ambulance captain, he landed a job as a pilot at American Eagle flying ATR-42s and 72s out of Chicago, then Dallas, and Miami.
In February 1999, two weeks after his 30th birthday, Tapia hopped over to the majors and began flying for US Airways as a first officer on the McDonnell Douglas MD-80.
“It took eleven years to get there and I sacrificed a lot,” Tapia told AvGeekery. “But I ended up with my dream job. I met my wife at US Airways. Life was great.” And then, on a clear blue Tuesday morning in September 2001, the airline industry was rocked to its core.
Six months after the 9/11 attacks, Tapia was furloughed. US Airways was in deep financial trouble and he knew he wouldn’t be called back anytime soon. He soon ran out of money. But with a wife, a newborn daughter, and a mortgage, he knew he had to do something.
After a short stint to make ends meet selling Mexican pottery in the concourse of a local mall and moonlighting preparing financial plans, all while filling out applications, and getting job offers to fly overseas that would have required him to uproot his entire family, Tapia made a decision. He was going to become a financial planner to help pilots navigate the business-end of their careers and retire on their terms.
The Birth of a Multi-Million-Dollar Company Serving Other Pilots and Aviation Professionals
Tapia had always enjoyed learning about the financial world and through his years as a pilot, he gained valuable insight that he wanted to share with others.
He launched a business through a company based in The Woodlands, Texas. After parking himself in the local library for three months straight studying for licenses he needed for the job, he got to work.
Tapia found success rather quickly. As part of the pilots union (and still a furloughed US Airways Mainline Pilot), he was still connected to his peers, as well as had valuable industry data. He started establishing client relationships, began getting referrals, and – within six months – became the top producer in the company.
However, Tapia longed to be more than a salesperson. He knew, that to fully service his clients and be a true advisor to the professional pilot community, he had to create a full service private wealth management and financial planning firm, customized for airline pilots, independent from any other financial firms. So, in October 2004, he broke off from the company and launched Aviation Retirement Strategies, LLC which specializes in private wealth management for pilots and other aviation professionals.
Tapia focused on building his brand into the go-to company for pilots as they prepared for retirement. He knew what he had was so special that he even passed up the opportunity to go back and fly for Mainline US Airways when they called him back in 2007.
“I didn’t want to give up what I had built,” Tapia said about his company. “So I declined and gave up my seniority number. Successfully running a high-level financial firm while flying full-time was just not an option. Giving up my seniority number was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life because it took so long and it was so hard to get there. But once I gave it up, it was 100% about helping pilots and in turn building the brand.”
From that point on, ARS flourished. Today, Tapia and his team manage client assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And they do it all through uniquely personal service where they know every client personally, forgoing volume for the sake of quality.
“Our clients have our personal cell phone numbers,” Tapia said proudly. “We consider them family.”
Alex Shares His Six Ways Aviation Professionals Can Prepare for Retirement
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FOR MORE INFORMATION: Alex Tapia is the president and founder of Aviation Retirement Strategies in Houston, Texas. He and his wife Dana live in Spring, Texas with their daughter Alexa, and twin boys Adrian and Jaden. To learn more about Aviation Retirement Strategies, visit PilotMoney.com.
