Client Profile: Campbell Maffett & Andrea Smith
Campbell has kindly written the article below on their family, working life and the relationship they have with our company since 1994. We greatly appreciate his contribution to Trade Secrets.
It’s said that life is a journey, and for me it seems that GFM have been a part of my journey for most of my adult life.
I was first introduced to GFM via a colleague very early in my working career in the early 90’s, when they were still located in the St Kilda Rd office, initially as a provider of insurance. The service was outstanding. They were never pushy, never tried to “sell” products, but always provided balanced and sound advice on which to make decisions. This was, and still is a unique feature of GFM – being privately owned and honest in their advice.
I think I was too young (and naive!) to think about financial advice then. However, not only has GFM been instrumental in all aspects of my financial wellbeing, but they’ve also been partners in my life journey. Although I stopped short of seeking their approval for marriage, even though that turned out to be a good “investment”, also.
I started work in Dec 1989 for Telecom, immediately after finishing a Computer Science degree, as a programmer and hence commenced my career in IT. My work career continued at Telecom – later Telstra – for over 4 years when I left to work as a freelance consultant developing PC applications for various businesses. I was about 24 or 25 at the time, and worked this way for several years before returning to employed work in an IT consultancy business.
My IT career evolved into Business Analysis, and included stints with Tattersall’s, Tabcorp, DHS and most recently the Australian Red Cross Blood Service where I reached 10 years’ service in 2017. My career took a turn upon being made redundant, however, I’m currently in a career transition to become a Primary School Teacher, for which I hope to complete a Masters course by the end of 2018.
Without doubt the biggest change in my life came in 2010 upon meeting my now wife, Andrea, who works in the Department of Health and Human Services. Since the subsequent arrival of our two kids Eddie (5) and Leah (3), life is unrecognisable from some years ago.
During this time, my – and now Andrea’s – contact, involvement and trust in GFM increased to cover literally all aspects of our financial scenario. Initially, I was quite naive and didn’t grasp the importance and value of good financial advice and management. I guess I kind of thought it would take care of itself as I “grew up”.
After some time I was introduced to Paul Nicol, who would come to be our ongoing advisor to this day. At first I wasn’t sure about taking financial advice from someone younger than me, but that soon proved to be unjustified.
Paul’s guidance has been outstanding and invaluable, and I’ve learned a lot from him so that I am well informed enough to be happy and confident in the integrity of his advice. Andrea hit him with some hard questions early on in our relationship as she learned about various financial arrangements, and Paul was able to explain the rationale for decisions, and was open to feedback which led to some small changes here and there.
I know that he has our interests at heart which has helped set us up for the future.
A really defining feature of Paul’s is his personal touch and customer service and this is also reflected across all GFM staff. Throughout the changes in our lives, they always talk with us as people not just clients, are interested in how our family is and celebrate the exciting things that happen.
Bringing on GFM Gruchy Accounting has been really helpful, and proven very worthwhile for us in having all the services under one roof. They were particularly helpful in a unique tax situation, which had a great outcome through their diligent investigation and actions.
The regular reporting gives us a detailed explanation of our matters. Over the years we’ve had no hesitation in referring a number of family and friends to GFM, and had great feedback from them.