Kenneth Hamilton, CFP®, CDFA®, RICP®, CSSCS®

Ken believes good financial planning should ultimately give people more freedom to enjoy their lives, not someday, but their actual lives.

Ken has never believed the goal is to spend decades preparing for some future date when you finally give yourself permission to enjoy what you have worked for.

The point of planning is to create choices: how you spend your time, the people and causes you support, and whether you can take the trip, help your kids, retire earlier, change careers, start a business, or simply know the pieces fit together.

The Résumé Portion, Briefly

Ken has worked in financial planning since 2010 and helped found Mission Financial Planners in 2020. He is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and also holds the Retirement Income Certified Professional®, Certified Divorce Financial Analyst®, and Certified Social Security Claiming Strategist® designations. His work centers on retirement income, Social Security, tax-efficient planning, and major life transitions.

Ken Likes the Complicated Stuff

Ken enjoys taking something complicated, pulling the pieces apart, and figuring out how they fit together. He wants to understand what you own, what you are trying to accomplish, what worries you, and what happens if Plan A does not work.

If you want the details, he is happy to go down the rabbit hole with you. If you want the executive summary, he can do that too.

Ken does not think financial planning should feel like someone saying, “Trust me.” You should understand your plan, why you are doing it, and how it connects to the life you are trying to build.

Small Wins Can Do Big Things

Ken loves Star Wars for the fun of it, but also for a bigger idea: small people, working together, can take on very big things.

He thinks financial planning works much the same way. Few financial lives are transformed by one brilliant decision. They change through smaller choices made over time: save here, adjust there, use an opportunity, recover from a mistake, and change the plan when life changes.

He does not recommend using the Force as an investment strategy. Compliance would probably have questions.

Attracted by the Shine. Stayed for the Mission.

Notre Dame occupies an outsized piece of Ken’s heart. He is an alumnus and former member of the Notre Dame Marching Band. He says he was attracted by the shine but stayed because of the mission.

What stayed with him was a larger question: What are you going to do with what you have built?

For Ken, building a great life and doing good for the people around you are not competing ideas. The goal at Mission Financial Planners is not simply to help people accumulate more, but to help them be intentional about what all of it is for.

Husband. Dad. Trying to Pay Attention.

Away from work, the center of Ken’s world is his family. He and his wife, Josie, enjoy live performances and walking the San Antonio River Walk.

Being a dad changed Ken’s relationship with time. Children have obvious firsts, but the lasts are different. You rarely know when you are carrying your child to bed for the last time or feeling that little hand reach for yours automatically.

That made being present incredibly important to Ken. Prepare for the future, but do not become so focused on tomorrow that you miss today.

Food, Travel, Sports, and Space

Ken likes to cook for a crowd, especially crawfish boils and fajita spreads. His travel philosophy is both “wing it” and “research everything”: learn what is worth seeing, then leave room for something unexpected.

He is a lifelong San Antonio Spurs and Notre Dame football fan and also enjoys gardening, aviation, space exploration, and stargazing. If a retirement conversation detours into the Apollo program or airplane design, Ken may be responsible.

He also has a difficult time passing up a pun and may unexpectedly enter a hula-hoop contest or grab a karaoke microphone. You cannot ask him to do it. That ruins everything.

So, Who Is Ken?

More than anything, Ken is curious. He likes figuring out how things work, meeting people with interesting stories, asking questions, sharing a great meal, spending time with his family, and leaving room for something unexpected.

He believes that if you are fortunate enough to build some success, part of the responsibility, and part of the fun, is deciding how to use it to help someone else.

Behind every account, projection, tax strategy, retirement date, estate plan, and spreadsheet is a person trying to do something with their life.

Ken’s job is to help you understand the possibilities, prepare for what is worth preparing for, and make good decisions today that give you more choices tomorrow.

And then, this part matters, leave enough room in the plan to enjoy the life happening in between.