Licensed as a Financial Advisor in 1990, Max Scholfield provides wealth and investment management advisory services. Max is known for understanding his client’s risk tolerance, their goals, and building investment strategies exclusively for them. With over 26 years of experience, Max has seen several market cycles and understands how the various investments behave and has the experience to know when to employ investment choices that are most likely to provide value for investors. Max looks at the placement of investments much like a game of chess. Quick moves can be made when necessary, but even under those circumstances, the majority of choices presented to clients have been analytically scrutinized and thoughtfully chosen.
Equally important to Max is providing a service to clients for the trusted investments for their future. He is always mindful of fees associated with different products and accounts, and works hard to make sure clients fully understand the implications of the choices in front of them, especially fee related, before they move forward with a course of action.
In addition to his deep understanding of the expected suite of investment choices available to clients, he also spent years researching the market and developed a proprietary, dynamic investment strategy designed to capitalize on relative market strengths. That experience taught him a great deal about money management, and while he has been able to be successful in running the strategy, it also often kept him up at night. He's been very pleased to now be able to offer clients access to the entire Cetera Financial Management Team through First Allied Advisory Services.
Originally hired into the industry by Dean Witter, which later became Morgan Stanley, Max was an investment advisor and also served as the office manager for several years. He left to join UBS Financial Services and was with them over six years. He has since established his own practice within First Allied Securities, Inc. in November of 2011.
The choice of becoming independent, and joining First Allied Securities, and First Allied Advisory Services, has been a tremendously positive experience. They're a company who are focused on providing service excellence to their clients (us, as their advisors), and that in turn makes it so much easier for us to provide service excellence to our clients.
Prior to his experience with investments, Max was a cattle broker, selling cows and bulls to several packers throughout the Midwest. Additionally, in an entrepreneurial vein, he bought an aging meat packing company and was able to turn it around and sell it – all before he was 30. His early years were spent on the family farm in Kansas where his family raised cattle, hogs, wheat, milo, and hay.
Max earned his Bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University in Agricultural Economics. Be sure to tease him if you went to a rival school in basketball. He spent some good college years in those bleachers cheering on the team. He’s an avid Broncos fan, and has been trying to understand NASCAR. He’s not entirely there yet, but is willing to keep an open mind and is just looking for a good coach.
If you really want to start a conversation, ask him about fishing. Fly fishing, bass fishing, it doesn’t matter. He had a fishing rod at the age of 3, and he knew how to use it. He’s currently active in the Southwestern Bass Masters Fishing Club – weekends and holidays are spent on the water trying to give the fish some exercise.
Max moved to Durango in 1980, and this is where his two boys were born and raised. He started in the financial services industry in 1990, and has been serving clients ever since. Many of his early clients are still working with him. That’s the true reward in this business, building long-term relationships with clients.
Playing an active role in the Durango community has always been important to Max. He has been a long-standing sponsor of the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization of Southwest Colorado, and key events like their annual Dos Mosca fly fishing fundraising tournament. He has also been a member of Kiwanis Club of Durango, BASS Masters of Southwest Colorado and qualified for the Colorado StateBASS fishing team in 2007.