Erik Vatter

Advisor at Merrill

Updated today
Merrill logo

Firm

Merrill

Location

Lakewood Ranch, FL 34202

Credentials

Series 66

Industry experience

22 years

About

Erik Vatter is a Senior Financial Advisor with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, specializing in helping individuals and institutions define their financial goals, implement customized strategies, and provide ongoing advice. Since beginning his career in financial services in 2003, Erik has held roles as both a financial advisor and senior executive, with experience spanning regional and national responsibilities. His client focus areas include family wealth management strategies, personal retirement planning, and tax minimization.

Erik holds the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® (CFP) designation and is a Personal Investment Advisor (PIA). He earned his bachelor’s degree from the Pennsylvania State University System. Erik utilizes tools such as the Merrill Personal Wealth Analysis® to develop personalized plans that address complex retirement and wealth management questions. His approach is designed to help clients move beyond general advice to create tailored financial strategies.

Outside of his professional role, Erik and his family actively participate in their community’s sports, arts, and cultural institutions. He is involved with organizations such as All Faiths Food Bank and CareerEdge - Sarasota. In his personal time, Erik enjoys playing soccer, cooking, and supporting Penn State athletics.

Expertise

General retirement planning Retirement income strategy Income planning Social Security optimization Medicare planning

Demographic focus

Mid-Career Professionals Parents Sandwich Generation

Work history

Bank Of America, N.a.

2011 - Present (15 years)

Merrill Lynch, PIERCE, FENNER & SMITH INCORPORATED

2011 - Present (15 years)

Disclosures

Exclamation point means they have disclosures of this type. Check mark means no disclosures of this type were found.

Garrett M

CFP®, ChFC®

Bradenton, FL

Moore Financial Management, Inc.

Hi, my name is C Garrett Moore. I am carrying on a family tradition of over 30 years of helping people get retired, and stay retired. Since taking the reins in 2017, I transformed the business into a fully independent fiduciary firm so that I can put my clients first and do what's best for them. I also obtained the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and Chartered Financial Consultant® designations which exemplify my commitment to the highest standards of integrity and professionalism. I help pre-retirees plan for their upcoming financial independence, and young professional families get their financial lives simplified and on track towards the life they want. When I'm not working with clients, you can find me chasing down our two beautifully crazy boys, Gavin and Gabriel.

General retirement planning Young Professionals

Filip T

CFP®

Sarasota, FL

Benzina Wealth, LLC

Filip is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ with almost two decades of financial services experience. He started his career in the retail banking environment - first as a bank teller in high school before moving on to a banker role at JP Morgan Chase after graduating college. In this capacity, Filip educated and assisted a diverse mix of personal and business clients with core financial needs including banking, investments and lending. After, he transitioned to UBS and developed a strong foundation around investment research early on and comprehensive planning later, acquiring his CFP® certification in 2017. With this base, Filip moved to TIAA to work with mostly late career accumulators, pre-retirees and retirees. This is where his passion for holistic planning really took off and led him to Facet, where he was able to apply his experience and knowledge to everyone at different stages of life. Additionally, he became an expert in strategizing around niche components of planning like equity compensation, employee benefits and more. Fast forward to the current day, Filip owns and operates Benzina Wealth, LLC (an independent Registered Investment Advisor) where he can focus his diverse skill set, perfectionist nature and all resources on creating a high quality, detailed financial plan for mid-career professionals and business owners. Growing up in New York, Filip now considers the Gulf Coast of Florida his home base alongside his wife, Stephanie and their cat, Olivia (who really runs the house) - Filip’s parents are 2 miles away (kind of like “Everybody loves Raymond”). Their values include spending time with family (even if it means a quick turnaround flight to NY to see the in-laws), traveling to gain exposure to different cultures around the world, and staying active (with hiking and skiing at the top of the list). Daily free time is occupied with reading, listening to a podcast, hitting the gym or going on a long drive together.

Business ownership considerations Business Financial Management Family Business Established Professionals Gen Y/Millennials (Born 1980-1995)

Angela W

CFP®

Sarasota, FL

Sage Wealth Consulting, LLC

At Sage Wealth Consulting, we understand the complexities of managing investments, especially when significant assets are at stake. That’s why we offer tailored investment management services designed to align with your unique goals and risk tolerance. With a minimum investment requirement of $1,000,000, we cater to individuals and families who seek personalized attention and a commitment to their financial success. From crafting a customized investment strategy to ongoing portfolio monitoring and adjustments, we work diligently to optimize your wealth accumulation and preservation. Whether you’re planning for retirement, saving for a milestone, or building a legacy, we provide the expertise and resources to help you achieve your objectives. Discover the peace of mind that comes from partnering with Sage Wealth Consulting. Angela Wetzig CFP® is the founder of Sage Wealth Consulting, LLC, a fiduciary, fee-only registered investment advisory firm in Sarasota, Florida. With over a decade in wealth management, she has helped hundreds of clients reach their goals. Her articles have been featured in industry publications including NAPFA magazine and The Register IARFC journal. Additionally, she was nominated in 2020 for Women to Watch by Investment News. Angela Wetzig also serves on the Investment Committee of Community Foundation of Sarasota County. She resides with her husband in sunny Sarasota, Florida.

General retirement planning Baby Boomers (Born 1946-1964)

Daniel K

CFP®

Sarasota, FL

Wise Stewardship Financial Planning, LLC

Hello, I’m Daniel – husband to Anna, widower to Sarah, Air Force veteran, business owner, writer, speaker, CFP® Professional, financial planner, and Christ-follower. I’m the founder of Wise Stewardship Financial Planning where we offer fee-only, fiduciary financial planning and investment advice with a special focus on young widows and widowers as well as servicemembers and their families. Grief changes everything. I know that all too well from personal experience as I became a widower at 31 and before that, father to 3 children in heaven. My passion and purpose now is to take what I’ve learned from those experiences combined with financial planning and advice to be a help to you in your own unique grief journey. Wise Stewardship works together with you to help gain stability in your current financial situation, prioritize next steps, and walk with you into a new and different future. Here’s the rest of my story and why I became a financial planner. I’ve always been interested in money since I was a little kid, including out-bidding my siblings for chores-for-hire, to providing loans to my siblings and friends when they had spent all their money and diligently saving my allowance for future goals. Over time this evolved into reading the stock pages in the newspaper as a young teenager and then choosing to major in economics in college. After completing Air Force ROTC at Purdue University, I commissioned as an officer into the Air Force in 2009 but continued my personal interest into personal finances, investing, and all things money-related. In my college years and early 20s, I read hundreds of books and spent thousands of hours studying financial planning topics. I also had the opportunity to be a volunteer financial counselor during many of the years when I was on active duty in addition to helping and educating family and friends over the years. Thanks to countless help along the way, I learned more about the financial services industry and found my way to fee-only, fiduciary financial planning. It was through these experiences that sparked my passion and helped me realize what I wanted to do whenever I decided to leave the military! As an officer on active duty for almost 9 years, along with a brother, sister, and brother-in-law in the military, I experienced firsthand the benefits and challenges that military life can have on all aspects of life especially finances. Frequent changes like TDY’s, deployments, and PCS’s add unique potential opportunities and obstacles to meeting goals and dreams. Add in the often disparate and sometimes confusing military pay, benefits, scattered military benefits and discounts, and countless people offering advice or services, and there is often a lack of clarity on how best to optimize all of these to best meet goals. I’ve seen almost everything military life can throw at you and been through much of what you probably have questions about. I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t; what’s important and what isn’t. I’m now able to use these vast experiences to help my clients navigate the challenges of the busy military life, get the most out of your hard-earned benefits, and help you achieve your goals. My journey to become a financial planner was also profoundly impacted by what happened in my personal life. I met and married my wife Sarah back in 2012 and we embarked on military life together, at the time thinking I would be on active duty for a full career. As time went by, God brought countless joys as well as numerous trials. Sarah was a cancer survivor when she survived thyroid cancer at the age of 21, and had experienced other health trials and surgeries in the years before we met. Then in the first three years of our marriage, we experienced the agonizing sorrow of grief from the loss of three children through first term miscarriages. Sarah’s health continued to decline over the course of our marriage and medical answers mostly eluded us as we saw dozens of doctors and specialists. Sarah became mostly homebound as her energy failed so I became her primary caregiver as family was thousands of miles away while continuing to work fulltime as an officer in the Air Force. However, it rapidly became evident that I could no longer continue down the active duty career path so I began planning to transition out of the military. Given the flexibility I would need as a primary caregiver, I explored entrepreneurship by launching my own financial planning firm to marry my passion for helping people with their finances with my need to take care of my wife. Before that plan could come to fruition, a medical crisis landed Sarah in the hospital from which followed a cascading sequence of events in which we lived in hospitals across two states for the next six months. Finally, the doctors said there wasn’t much more they could do and Sarah and I made the difficult decision to enter hospice. We were able to spend a precious 6 weeks together as well as flying out family and dear friends to be able to say goodbye. Sarah passed away in the late summer of 2017 as I held her hand and bid her an earthly farewell. She was only 32, and we had been married just under five truly amazing years. Suddenly, my entire life had been turned upside down. I was 31 and it felt like every plan I had made was shattered yet again. My abiding faith in God and His endless grace helped bear me up in the agony of grief in the months that followed. Thanks to the boundless support of my family, fellow young widowed spouses I connected with, my church, Air Force family, network of friends, and an invaluable grief counselor, I found a way to keep moving forward. I also received further confirmation of the incredible value of financial planning when I hired my own financial planner in the middle of my grief journey to help me sort through all the variables of my financial life, have a compassionate and rational (as sometimes my grief was not very logical) outside perspective, and figure out what my new financial future might look like. I also gained an inside perspective to the other side of the estate planning experience as I acted as the executor of my wife’s estate. I dealt with everything from dealing with creditors, bequeathing personal items, transferring titles of houses, vehicles, settling life insurance policies, closing accounts, and much more. While I would never have wished to learn in this way ,these unique personal experiences prepared me to understand not just the “science” of estate planning, but also the intimate and personal art if helping clients work through the full range of emotional nuances in this process. I ended up separating from the Air Force in early 2018 and embarked on an 8 month sabbatical. Sarah and I long considered taking a few months off after active duty so we could travel some more, visit friends and family across the US, and take advantage of a mid-career transition to do something that otherwise isn’t possible with normal vacation time off. We had been saving up for this opportunity for several years and I ultimately ended up buying a truck and RV trailer so I could maximize my travel flexibility. Over the course my sabbatical, I visited 38 states, drove more than 27K miles, saw 14 National Parks, visited dozens of friends and family, and made incredible memories! The time off gave me opportunities to heal, rest, think deeply, journal and write, and lay the groundwork for launching Wise Stewardship. However, there was something even more amazing and unexpected that happened in the midst of my sabbatical. I ended up meeting someone and falling in love! In a beautiful story that I could never have imagined on my own, God brought Anna into my life. Over the course of my sabbatical travels, we began a relationship that quickly became apparent to us and everyone that knew and loved us, that this was something very special. I ended up moving to the Boston area to join Anna after we got married capping off a whirlwind of a year! It’s been an amazing journey to this place and I’m so excited about this next chapter! Anna is the gift that I thought I would never have. She has demonstrated to me that love and a different future was possible. Wise Stewardship Financial Planning launched in November 2018 to offer fee-only, fiduciary financial planning to help fellow young widowed spouses as well as servicemembers and their families. I count it a privilege to now help others by taking what I’ve learned about the journey of grief combined with the math of financial advice. Finances are just a tool to accomplish our goals in life so I help people figure out what is most important to them, and then build their lives and finances to be able to accomplish them. I am here to be a companion to you as you navigate many financial issues and life circumstances. Professional Biography Daniel Kopp is a fee-only, fiduciary financial planner and founder of Wise Stewardship Financial Planning where he helps young widows and widowers as well as servicemembers get their financial lives in order by aligning their money with their values. He is also an Air Force veteran after almost 9 years as an officer on active duty during which he served as an Air Battle Manager participating in combat deployments and training opportunities all across the world. Outside of his official military commitments, Daniel has always had a passion to help servicemembers and their families master their finances where he served as a volunteer financial counselor during most of his time on active duty. Daniel is a widower after his wife Sarah passed away in late 2017. In the few years prior to her death, Daniel had become her full-time caregiver due to a variety of health conditions including the loss of three miscarriages. During that time, he learned how to persevere by ordering his life around his faith in God and aligning family, work, and finances with his personal goals. Daniel now combines his financial training and experience helping people with a deep, personal understanding of how grief affects every single area of life. Daniel is now married to his wife Anna, and lives in the Boston area where they love to explore new places, try interesting cuisines, serve in their local church, and take advantage of the rich history of New England. You’ll find a fast way to become their friend if you play board games with them! Daniel is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER (TM) having met the rigorous professional standards and agreed to adhere to the principles of integrity, objectivity, competence, fairness, confidentiality, professionalism and diligence when dealing with clients. Daniel received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics from Purdue University as a third-generation Boilermaker, where he graduated with Highest Distinction (top 3%) and was named one of the Top 10 Krannert School of Business Seniors in a graduating class of over 850. He has also received his Master of Arts in Military Studies and Strategic Leadership from American Military University, and is also pursuing a second Masters of Science in Advanced Financial Planning and Financial Therapy from Kansas State University to even further deepen his competencies. Daniel is also a frequent personal-finance freelance writer and speaker, especially on military-related topics. Daniel is a distinguished Air Force veteran as a three-time Air Force Distinguished Graduate (#1) for each of his three formal training courses as well as the Air Force’s David C. Schilling Award for the most outstanding contributions to the field of flight along with numerous other awards and accolades in his military career.

Military & Veterans Widow/Widower Christian Faith Based

Tarif C

CFP®

Sarasota, FL

Origin Investment Advisory LLC

Tarif Carson, CFP®, serves as the Director of Portfolio Strategy & Wealth Planner at 2nd Story Wealth Planners, LLC, where he blends nearly 20 years of portfolio management expertise with his passion for cultivating meaningful client relationships. He designs and oversees the investment portfolio models that guide clients toward their financial goals, while also working directly with clients to deliver personalized financial strategies that align with their values, aspirations, and long-term legacies. Throughout his career, Tarif has partnered with many clients—from high-net-worth individuals managing significant portfolios to underserved communities striving toward financial independence. His professional journey includes roles as a Senior Lead Planner at Facet Wealth, where he helped clients achieve major life goals such as early retirement, homeownership, and world travel, and as a Senior Financial Advisor at Vanguard, managing over $500 million in assets while collaborating with clients and their tax professionals to ensure tax-efficient decisions. Tarif’s approach to planning evolves as life changes, ensuring clients' financial plans remain flexible and forward-looking. In addition to his technical expertise, Tarif believes strongly in the power of personal growth and financial legacy. His guiding philosophy: "Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny," serves as the foundation for how he advises clients on building lasting legacies for their families. Outside of his professional role, Tarif is focused on planting the seeds of a meaningful legacy for his family and helping his clients do the same—building not just wealth, but values that endure across generations. His commitment to mentorship extends this philosophy, as he is dedicated to guiding and developing aspiring financial planners. Through mentorship, Tarif ensures that the next generation of financial professionals upholds the same standards of integrity, service, and the pursuit of financial empowerment. Tarif earned a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the first HBCU Cheyney University and holds the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation. He is also a member of the Financial Planning Association, Association for African American Financial Advisors and a VITA Volunteer who helps income tax payers accurately prepare and file taxes

African Americans/Black Women Business Owners Mid-Career Professionals Gen Y/Millennials (Born 1980-1995)
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Asad G

CFP®, EA

Sarasota, FL

Origin Investment Advisory LLC

Asad Gourani is CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional, and the founder & CEO of AG Wealth Management, a fiduciary wealth management firm focused on working with young professionals and business owners, where he offers comprehensive financial planning along with investment management. Numerous publications have quoted Asad and in topics regarding the financial markets and personal finance. Those publications include US News, CNBC, Investment News, Yahoo! Finance, along with several TV appearances on stations such as Fox Detroit, and ABC WXYZ. Outside of AG Wealth Management, Asad is very active in the financial community and currently sits on the board of directors of the Financial Planning Association of Michigan and is the Co-Chairman of the NexGen committee where he is committed to advancing the profession among young professionals. Read Asad's Blog here: https://www.agwealthm.com/blog/

Business ownership considerations Tax strategies for small businesses Attorney Dentist Founder/Business Owner Gen Y/Millennials (Born 1980-1995)
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