local storiesMay 30, 2023

Meet Bob Chitrathorn

Local Stories

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Bob Chitrathorn.

Bob, thank you so much for joining us today. We’d love for you to bring our readers up to speed – can you introduce yourself and share your story?
CFO/VP of Wealth Planning Wealth Planning By Bob Chitrathorn of Simplified Wealth Management

It all started when I was a young lad. As with many youngsters, I would sometimes overhear my parents argue. Money is a common argument for most families and my parents were no different. My parents were both born in Thailand and migrated to the U. S. A in the mid 70’s. They worked very hard to give my sister and I the world. We grew up in a mobile home park in Colton, CA. I didn’t realize how good others had it until I started going to friends’ birthday parties and visiting their homes. They were pretty well off in my opinion, especially when compared to us. However, I also realized that others were not as fortunate as my family. What was consistent, was that all families, regardless of where or how they lived, argued about money.

One day, I was sliding a glass jar and knocked it off of the kitchen table. Time slowed as I watched this jar of wrapped candies miss my little hands and descend off of the wooden table top. Of course, the table had metal legs and, of course, the jar landed right on one and shattered into, what I thought was, a million pieces. I was so afraid about my parents finding out. It wasn’t so much that I broke the jar, but that I was afraid that I might be the cause of an argument between my parents.

I decided shortly thereafter that I wanted to do something to help families like mine avoid arguments over money. Albeit at the young age of seven, I wasn’t sure how I was going to accomplish this new goal. It turned out that as I grew older, I was pretty good with money and math. Numbers came naturally to me.

Fast forward to my senior year in high school where I decided to major in business in college. I wanted to help people to achieve more and be more, as I knew I could. I wanted to make a direct and beneficial impact on their lives. With that driving determination, I earned Bachelor of Science degrees in both finance and real estate.

I have been a financial advisor for over 18 years. Most of those years were spent with a prior financial firm before I resigned, as I didn’t feel like our values were still aligned. After researching different companies, learning more about what they stand for, things fell into place for me last year. I was able to partner with with a great financial firm where I knew that the other partners shared similar core values to my own. Eventually broke off with a couple partners and started our own firm, Simplified Wealth Management to be better aligned with our values and build a new generation of advisors.

I believe I got where I am today by working hard, and striving to make a difference to better those around me. I believe that when people see how hard you work for them, then they see how much you care.

Please tell us more about your practice.
Simplified Wealth Management is a financial firm that helps individuals with financial planning, wealth accumulation and wealth management. We believe that building a relationship with our clients is crucial if we’re going to help guide them. For us to be able to best help our clients, we need to learn more about them and really get to know them. We help people save, invest, protect and plan. That’s what we do. Our objective is to understand what our clients hope to accomplish and then we help formulate a plan to help get them there. We are fully independent and can work with most firms in the marketplace. We don’t have any of our own investments or products, which allows us to be completely objective. We are planners. It is not just about investing and saving, but about having a solid foundation that is flexible, as life tends to be. We help build financial plans and road maps.to help people reach their own personal financial goals. We help build a solid financial strategy and then provide support with implementation and monitoring to make sure that our clients can continue to stay on course. With a solid financial plan or road map, we believe it is much easier to get back on course should something unexpected happen. If new goals, or variables arise, we make sure that the plan is flexible enough to adjust and accommodate accordingly.