Company History
Aspire Wealth Architects is a Pennsylvania corporation headquartered in Wexford, Pennsylvania. The company was
founded in 2018 and Aspire Wealth Architects’ mission is to empower clients to live more abundant and purposeful lives.
Our process is focused on advising our clients to avoid unnecessary investment risk, avoid needless or irrational
sacrifices to their lifestyle and to constantly measure, in easily understandable terminology, their progress toward
accomplishing the goals they value. These functions are carried out in the context of understanding the inherent
uncertainty of financial markets, which neither we nor our clients can control, and by balancing a client’s range of goal
choices and priorities to provide the client with a sufficient level of confidence of accomplishing those goals. We
rationally minimize the controllable cost of investment portfolio expenses and income taxes by primarily utilizing tax-
efficient, broadly diversified indexed exchange-traded funds. Our clients’ financial goal plans are highly likely to change
as we adapt to changing lives, aspirations, goals, priorities, and changes in asset values.
Aspire Wealth Architects’ value proposition to its clients consists of the following:
• controlling the investment process to minimize expenses, taxes, and underperformance
• ongoing monitoring and reaffirmation of the client’s goals
• ongoing reaffirmation of the prioritization of goals related to each other
Ongoing advice derived from daily monitoring of portfolios, frequent review of the financial goal plan’s confidence
levels and periodic meetings to reaffirm and identify new goals and priorities provide significant value-adds over a client’s
lifetime.
In all our efforts to deliver the best planning and management for our clients we strive to remain objective and
unbiased, continually seeking to advance our methods, supporting tools, and research while attempting to establish
ourselves as the standard by which our industry measures quality, honesty, and integrity.
Principal Owners of the Firm
John J. Cully III
Caitlin Cully
Ian Cully
Walter A. Laub
We will discuss the backgrounds of our principals more fully in Part 2B of our ADV, the Brochure Supplement.
Services
SERVICES FOR INDIVIDUALS/TRUSTS/ENDOWMENTS
Aspire Wealth Architects offers investment advisory services to clients based on our Investment Advisory
Agreement. Our firm and its associates will perform any or all of the following advisory services on behalf of its clients:
1) Understanding the client's financial circumstances.
2) Discovering the client’s aspirational and tolerable levels for the following:
a Personal and related financial or event goals of all types
b Savings and other sources of income
c Levels of target investment risk
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3) Prioritizing each of the client's financial and related non-financial goals relative to others. For example, would the
client be willing to work longer, save more, take more investment risk, or some combination in order to improve
the confidence or increase a more valued goal? Alternatively, would the client prefer to accept and plan for more
modest retirement spending by reducing exposure to the volatility of equity markets?
4) Obtaining such other relevant information necessary to make determinations or recommendations for the
investment of the client's assets (e.g., pension information, social security estimates, rental income, etc.).
5) Analyzing investment portfolio allocation alternatives in the context of prioritized financial goals for the likelihood
of supporting those goals in combination with any other client sources of income.
6) Recommending goals to be included in the financial plan with an appropriate asset allocation that strikes a
balance between providing an adequate level of confidence of meeting goals and avoiding unnecessary
investment risk and compromises to the client's lifestyle.
7) Implementing a plan for adopting recommended investment alternatives.
8) Performing ongoing review of the client's financial
goals to adjust, if necessary, current aspirational,
recommended, and tolerable goal ranges and priorities.
9) Providing ongoing monitoring of the financial plan’s funded status which relates to its level of confidence.
10) Reporting on a periodic basis, the progress of the client's investment portfolio on assets managed by Aspire
Wealth Architects.
11) Providing daily monitoring of all portfolios for variances between actual allocations and those required by the
recommended target allocations. Exceptions may be allowed indefinitely when tax consequences, transaction
costs, expected cash flows, or input from the client outweigh or override the benefits of rebalancing.
12) In some cases, relying on another registered investment advisor or registered investment advisor representative
within Aspire Wealth Architects to perform one or more of the above services.
13) Clients also have the option to give Aspire Wealth Architects permission to view and give advice as to invest and
reinvest on accounts held with an outside custodian, referred to as “Held Away “assets.
Customization of Client Accounts
The entire premise of our process is to define individual goals to develop customized plans for each client. Although
Aspire Wealth Architects has trading discretion over clients’ account(s), every client has the right to direct his or her own
account(s). For “Held Away” assets, Aspire Wealth Architects gives advice and clients can grant Limited Power of Attorney
for trading purposes only.
Wrap Fee Programs
Aspire Wealth Architects does not participate directly or indirectly in any wrap fee programs.
Assets Under Management
As of December 31, 2023, Aspire Wealth Architects manages $227,067,342 in regulatory assets under
management.
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Rollover to IRA
When we provide investment advice to you regarding your retirement plan account or individual retirement account,
we are fiduciaries within the meaning of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and/or the Internal
Revenue Code, as applicable, which are laws governing retirement accounts. The way we make money creates some
conflicts with your interests, so we operate under a special rule that requires us to act in your best interest and not put
our interest ahead of yours. Under this special rule’s provisions, we must:
• Meet a professional standard of care when making investment recommendations (give prudent advice);
• Never put our financial interests ahead of yours when making recommendations (give loyal advice);
• Avoid misleading statements about conflicts of interest, fees, and investments;
• Follow policies and procedures designed to ensure that we give advice that is in your best interest;
• Charge no more than is reasonable for our services; and
• Give you basic information about conflicts of interest.
As a fiduciary, we only recommend a rollover when we believe it is in your best interest.
Investors considering rolling over assets from a qualified employer-sponsored retirement plan (“Employer Plan”) to
an Individual Retirement Account (“IRA”) should review and consider the advantages and disadvantages of an IRA
rollover from their Employer Plan. A plan participant leaving an employer typically has four options (and may engage in
a combination of these options):
(1) Leave the money in the former employer’s plan, if permitted;
(2) Rollover the assets to a new employer’s plan (if available and rollovers are permitted);
(3) Rollover Employer Plan assets to an IRA; or,
(4) Cash out the Employer Plan assets and pay the required taxes on the distribution.
At a minimum, Investors should consider fees and expenses, investment options, services, penalty-free withdrawals,
protection from creditors and legal judgments, required minimum distributions, and employer stock. Aspire Wealth
Architects encourages you to discuss your options and review the above listed considerations with an accountant, third-
party administrator, investment advisor to your Employer Plan (if available), or legal counsel, to the extent you consider
necessary.