Gordon Sanson & Jenny Read

Gordon and Jenny have kindly written the article below on their working life, retirement and relationship with GFM Wealth Advisory. We greatly appreciate their contribution to Trade Secrets.

We are both academic biologists who have worked in universities for most of our lives. However, Jenny trained and worked briefly as an occupational therapist and then taught science at a high school on an outer island of Fiji for two years before returning to tertiary education. We are very fortunate to have separate and joint research interests that have taken us to many exciting places, and, with some reservations, we have had the satisfaction of rewarding work. Being in a university meant that we were required to contribute to the university superannuation scheme (UniSuper) from early in our careers. It is probably fair to say that super was not uppermost in our minds in the early days as we dealt with mortgages, etc. UniSuper was well run and performed well, so super investment was a hands-off experience. However, we became worried that our portfolio included businesses that concerned us for environmental and ethical reasons. Although UniSuper had some options for socially responsible investment, we became increasingly keen to have more control over how our money was invested.

In 2010, about three years before Gordon was due to retire, a work incident resulted in reduced vision, potentially permanent. We started to think more seriously about how best to manage our resources and plan for the future, and, on friends’ recommendations, we went to see GFM. This meeting was very reassuring and gave us much to consider. However, Gordon’s sight did improve, and we were able to continue with the work we enjoyed and to which we felt committed.

In 2012 GFM set up our family super fund. Gordon had been offered a secondment to the US to work on new technologies in education, which was both a frustrating and rewarding experience. Jenny took early retirement. One consequence of our five years in the US is that the fund’s trustees had to be residents in Australia. This was a bit daunting, but it was handled most efficiently by Patrick and the GFM team. Over subsequent years we have tried to divest ourselves of any parts of our portfolio that conflicted with our values and to support businesses that, in our view, contributed positively to a sustainable future. Patrick took on our concerns with understanding, patience and great diligence. We continue to be impressed with his ability to maintain a balanced portfolio that provides consistent and sound returns while meeting our investment specifications. Despite our relatively conservative investment strategy, which we feel is appropriate for our stage of life, and the constraints we put on our investment strategy, we feel our funds have performed very well. We have the great satisfaction of controlling our investments with confidence, and we look forward to our regular meetings with Patrick. We always learn something new.

We almost always take Patrick’s advice; he understands what we want to achieve and is very proactive. But we have also gained the confidence to be proactive ourselves, though it is reassuring to have the safety net of GFM’s experience and ethics and the wonderfully friendly and helpful GFM team!

We returned from the US to live in regional Victoria on a small acreage. Even though we are formally retired, we continue our research at a more relaxed pace. Much of our time is spent slowly renovating an old house and extensive gardens and ministering to a flock of agisted and rescued sheep and alpacas. And, of course, enjoying time spent with family and friends.