"Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves."
Maurice Wilson has followed this advice since the day he enrolled at Benedict College after coming to terms with the fact that an ROTC scholarship at Clemson University wasn’t right for him. He attended Benedict for 2 years balancing his time between pursuing a dual degree in physics and engineering, running track, and serving his community as member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated. He then transferred to Tennessee State University which enabled him to earn an internship with Rolls-Royce Aerospace. After graduating, he began working for Daimler Chrysler Automotive in Detroit, MI. During his time in Detroit, he earned a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering, but it was at Chrysler where he began to get a real education in the arena of life.
“At Chrysler, for the first time in my life I felt as if I was wasting my potential and settling for a paycheck.”
Maurice knew engineering wasn’t for him, but it wasn’t until he began investing in Chrysler’s 401(k) plan that he found his true calling – financial planning and investment management. He found that through financial planning he could apply the problem solving methodologies he learned in engineering.
When he began investing, he found a dearth of relevant and accessible information to assist him in his retirement planning. “Chrysler would bring in financial professionals to speak about retirement and financial planning, but I found that they only provided vague information and leaned towards giving stock and mutual fund picks” he says. He was more interested in what mattered, being educated so that he could confidently plan and invest for his future.
He began to immerse himself in the stock market, becoming a CNBC addict and reading 3 to 4 financial publications a day. Soon his colleagues began seeking his advice on selecting funds in their 401(k) plans. In 2002, Delta Air Lines offered him an opportunity to move back to the South. This brought him in contact with his first mentor in the world of financial planning.
His mentor advised him that he would never get anywhere working for someone else. With that in mind, Maurice chose to leave Delta Air Lines and start pursuing his passion for financial planning. Before starting his firm, he worked for American Express Financial Advisors and Arthur Wylie Wealth Management, experiences that have shaped the way he operates his business.
Today, Maurice is the founder and senior advisor of Wilson Wealth Management Group a leading provider of independent, objective, wealth management and financial planning. He operates his company applying many of the principles he learned in engineering stating that:
“Every client represents an open-ended problem that can be solved in an infinite
number of ways. The challenge lies in finding the optimum
solution.”
