For 20 years, Creative Financial Solutions, LLC has been an Ironton institution.

It was started by Arch Richman and Moe Pfeiffer in 1988. They had two offices, one in Ironton where Richman is from and one in Washington Courthouse where Pfeiffer is from.

Richman retired in 2002 and sold the Ironton office to Bret Hensley and Jay Zornes, both of whom he recruited.

Hensley joined in 1997 the firm and Zornes joined in 2000.

Hensley didn’t start out to be in financial planning. He was the manager of the Ironton Sherwin Williams store when he first met Richman.

Hensley said he was interested in the financial area when he was in college.

“I couldn’t find the right match and ended up going in a different direction,” he said. Instead, he took management classes, which brought him to Ironton.

Hensley got married in 1990 and the couple had certain financial goals they wanted to meet and went to Richman as clients.

“He got us on the fast track to what we wanted,” he said. “I really liked the way he did business, it was process-orientated, not product-orientated. There was a purpose to everything we did and it helped us get to our goals a lot faster.”

Richman invited Hensley to join the firm and he thought about it for a year before taking him up on the offer.

“I switched over from being the client to joining the team, so to speak,” Hensley said.

Zornes too was originally a client of Richman’s.

“He approached Arch about an opportunity of joining the firms, so Arch brought him in,” Hensley said.

That same approach was used to get the firm’s third financial planner, Jerri Compton.

“She was a client, I approached her about joining us,” Hensley said.

The other person on the staff is office manager Rona Hester.

“Rona has been here 19 years and we are quite fortunate that we were able to retain her,” Hensley said. “She is a great source of knowledge and the customers and clients know her, so its great that she is still with us.”

Hensley said the firm does comprehensive financial planning.

“That means basically that we pull together all of details about a person’s financial life and help them create a roadmap to help them get where they want to go,” he said. He said retirement planning is a big factor for most people seeking the firm out as is helping people with their pensions, managing investments and the details of various types of insurance. They help with income tax management and estates.

“We take a large holistic approach to it,” Hensley said. “When you look at that wide of an area, you can help people find opportunities and little things they can do to fine tune to get to their goals better.”

Hensley said the firm has been successful because of their personalized approach.

“I think it is the ongoing relationship we have with our clients,” he said. “It’s not that we get money from them, invest it and then send them on their way. I like all our clients. It becomes a very trusted relationship.”

For more information, go to www.cfsplanning.com.