By Ryan Crewe
Bob Oberstein would like to set you straight on something. “Gerontology is not the study of older people,” the CPA and financial planner said recently, “but is really the study of the processes of aging and how aging affects us socially, psychologically and financially.”
As a Registered Financial Gerontologist (RFG), a designation he recently received from the American Institute of Financial Gerontology (AIFG), Oberstein, 60, plans to expand upon his burgeoning financial planning firm.
In 2002, Oberstein, who has a Masters of Science degree in Taxation (MST), conceived OSF Wealth Management LLC as a way to help his tax clients with their planning needs.
“I realized that our clients weren’t planning for their future, they were just treading water in their present,” he explains. He took a series of tests and was conferred a Personal Financial Specialist (PFS), the second of his four alphabet soup designations that follow his name.
Since that time, the success of OSF Wealth has been palpable. “Clients are asking for our financial planning services now, clients who would have never asked before,” said Bob. In addition to theoretical interest, revenues have also swelled. “In the past five years, monies under management have increased ten times,” he said.
As OSF Wealth helps clients provide for their retirement, Oberstein is hoping his newfound knowledge as a RFG will help people will realize the need to plan for even longer. “This goes above and beyond normal retirement planning,” he said, adding, “we are focusing on peoples’ longevity by expanding on their goals and targets.”
Of particular interest to Bob is the so called “senior sandwich generation,” baby boomers who are financially responsible for both their parents and children’s finances. Nearly 10 million boomers are now raising kids or supporting an adult child while giving a financial hand to an aging parent, the Pew Research Center reports.
“It used to be that you would just care for yourself and your kids or you and your parents, but now, many of my clients are charged with taking care of multiple generations, including myself,” said Bob.
According to the American Health Care Association, the total population of Californians over 65 years old was just under 4 million in 2004, representing 10.5% of the overall population. The next year, that number increased to more than 7 million and represented about 16.4% of the overall California population. By 2050, a UC Berkley study recently projected, the 65+ age group in California will be three times what it is today.
The aging population has given rise to a cottage industry of people and organizations that are striving to care for a sector of society that is annually breaking life expectancy records. Construction of assisted living centers is on the rise, as well as the parallel need for continued care.
In January 2007, the AIFG convened in Greensboro, South Carolina for their fifth Gerontology seminar. Though only a handful of financial planners, accountants and interested parties showed, it was, according to organizer Dr. Neal Cutler, “the best conference we’ve ever had.” At the conference, attendees received a thick folder of notes that detailed everything from long-term care solutions to “Gerontology and the New Medicare.”
Bob was amongst those who attended the conference. “I wanted to understand the aging process, I wanted to understand what I have to look forward to as a baby boomer and what my clients have to look forward to.”
As a RFG, Bob will bring that knowledge from the conference room to the office, from the notebook to his clients’ ears. Though this will fit under the financial planning wing of OSF Wealth, Bob sees his new designation as a more holistic approach to financial planning.
“I’m trying to go beyond just thinking about my client’s basic retirement needs and take a broader view. I will look at the needs of their family through a generational perspective. I will take a look at their situation by looking at the bigger picture.”
Perhaps then, people will fully understand the meaning of Gerontology.