Charles D. Leedy CFA Chuck is Founder and Chief Investment Officer of the firm. Chuck served as Investment Director at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ($1.2B) from 1994 to 2003, where he was responsible for asset allocation and public manager selection. Prior to that, Chuck spent 14 years working on Wall Street with Salomon Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and C.J. Lawrence. Chuck received as B.S. degree in Commerce & Engineering, with a concentration in finance from Drexel University in 1979, and an M.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School in 1984. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst. Chuck is a member of the CFA Institute and is Co-Chairman of the Investment Committee for the Triangle Community Foundation ($120M).

James R. Sotell AIF Jim is a Director of the firm. Prior to joining the firm, he was a Vice President with Fidelity Investments, responsible for their institutional retirement business in the Southeast. Jim has over 17 years of financial services experience dealing both with individual and corporate investors. At Fidelity, Jim developed and implemented education and communications programs for corporations and their employees. Jim holds the Accredited Investment Fiduciary™ designation. The AIF® Program graduates are specially trained in investment fiduciary responsibility and portfolio management. He completed the FIIRG Investment Management Institute Training conducted by the Harvard Business School. Jim holds a BA from Hobart College in History and a minor in Economics. He also studied at The University of Edinburgh.

Laura A. Fairfax Laura serves as Associate Vice President. Her primary focus with our firm is client service. Laura has a wide range of experience. She formerly worked for SunTrust Bank/CCB where she was a Wealth Management Client Support Specialist. From 1995 until 2003, she worked at RBC Centura Bank as a Trust and Estate Planning Associate. Laura graduated with a B.A. from St. Andrews Presbyterian College in 1982 and earned a M. Div. from Duke University Divinity School in 1989. She also completed a course of study at the Southeastern Trust & Estate Planning School of Campbell University in 1995.

Our Custodian

More than 900 support staff at Schwab provide quality custody, trading, research and back-office support services for our clients. More than five million investors have put their trust in Schwab with a total asset base that exceeds $1 trillion. In addition to providing monthly statements, on-line trading/account view and all year-end tax documentation, Charles Schwab & Co, Inc. provides SIPC (The Securities Investor Protection Corporation) coverage up to $500,000 per customer account to protect securities, including claims up to $100,000 in cash. Excess coverage is provided by Lloyds of London.