Registered investment Advisor • Est. 1992

A private practice for the preservation of consequential wealth.

For more than three decades, VSM Wealth Advisory has served as a trusted fiduciary to families, founders, and principals — providing considered counsel on investment strategy, estate design, and the orderly transfer of wealth across generations.

VSM_Hero
Heritage
I. Heritage

Three decades of considered counsel.

VSM Wealth Advisory was founded on a single conviction: that families of significant means deserve advisors whose only product is judgment.

Since 1992, we have served these families and the institutions that hold their wealth in trust. Most new relationships come to us through the families and counsel we already serve — and many of the relationships we hold today began with a client's parents.

We neither advertise performance nor chase the markets. We hold ourselves to a standard older than the firm itself — the duty of a fiduciary, the discipline of an architect, and the discretion of a private banker of an earlier age.

Whom we serve

Founders & business owners
Executives with concentrated equity
Accomplished professionals
Inheritors & the trusts that hold their wealth
Families whose affairs span generations

4th

Generation of Client Families

34 yrs

of Continuous Counsel

Fee-Only

No Commissions · No Products
II. Philosophy

The measure of wealth is not its accumulation — but its thoughtful preservation and the lives it sustains.

An unhurried conviction.

Markets reward patience; the noise of any given quarter is irrelevant to the work of a generation. We invest with discipline, not speculation — measured in decades, accountable to the families we serve.

Fiduciary, without exception.

As a Registered Investment Adviser, we are obligated by law and by conscience to act in your singular interest. No commissions, no quiet incentives, no divided loyalty — only counsel.

The architecture of discretion.

The most consequential financial decisions are made in private. We have kept the practice deliberately small, so that the attention a family receives is never divided — and its affairs never become anyone else’s business.

III. Approach

A deliberate sequence — from first conversation to lasting partnership.

i
ii
iii
iv

Introduction

A private conversation, in confidence, to understand the contours of your circumstances and the questions you wish to resolve.

Discovery

An exhaustive review of the balance sheet, the entities, the relationships, and the objectives—both written and unwritten.

Architecture

A bespoke plan—investment, estate, tax, philanthropic—presented as a single, coherent document for your consideration.

Stewardship

Ongoing counsel, quarterly reviews, and the steady hand of a partner who knows your family as well as your portfolio.

IV. Services

A complete practice for the complexities that accompany substantial wealth.

— 01

Private Investment Counsel

Portfolio construction across global equities, fixed income, and carefully chosen public-market strategies — built around your risk posture, your liquidity requirements, and the obligations of more than one generation.

Private Investment Counsel

Our Investment Philosophy

Our philosophy is guided entirely by the science of capital markets and the decades of academic research upon which its application rests. Markets are unknowable in the short term, yet across time they have reliably worked — rewarding the patient investor and building enduring wealth. The discipline that matters is not predicting what any single day, month, or year will bring, but constructing a lifetime investment plan suited to a family's needs and possessing the conviction to remain faithful to it.

To regard the market in any other way — as a venue for timing, speculation, or the chase for the extraordinary — is to mistake a casino for an institution. We do not. We build plans meant to endure across decades and generations, and our counsel is devoted to keeping families disciplined when discipline is hardest and most valuable.

The principles that guide us

Capital markets work — and, given time, create wealth.
Diversification is the cornerstone of sound portfolio construction.
Risk and return are inextricably intertwined; one is never had without the other.
Structure — not selection or timing — explains the greater part of performance.
Investor behavior, in the end, determines the returns an investor actually realizes.

Stewardship, held to the highest standard

We are a fee-only fiduciary. We accept no commissions and sell no products; we are compensated solely by the families we serve, and we are bound — at all times and without exception — to act in your best interest. That obligation is the foundation of everything above. A philosophy grounded in evidence is only as valuable as the integrity of the hand that applies it.

This summary reflects the investment approach described in our Form ADV Part 2A. For the complete description of our methods, strategies, and the risks involved — including that markets may pass through extended periods of low, flat, or negative returns and that no outcome can be guaranteed — please review the full document.

Read the full Form ADV
— 02

Retirement & Income Planning

Sophisticated income and distribution strategies for executives, principals, and inheritors — designed to sustain the lifestyle you have built while preserving the capital base that funds it.

Retirement & Income Planning

Retirement & Income Planning Lasting Income

For families of substantial means, the move from building wealth to drawing upon it is the more delicate transition. Accumulation can be straightforward; distribution is where judgment earns its keep — coordinating timing, taxes, market risk, and longevity so your lifestyle is sustained without depleting the capital base that funds it.

A coordinated income plan

Most retirees hold three kinds of accounts, each taxed differently: taxable brokerage accounts, tax-deferred accounts such as traditional IRAs and 401(k)s, and tax-free Roth accounts. The order and amount you draw from each — the withdrawal sequence — can meaningfully change your lifetime tax bill and how long the portfolio lasts.

Beyond the conventional rule of thumb

The conventional approach — spend taxable accounts first, then tax-deferred, then Roth — is a reasonable starting point, but for larger portfolios it can concentrate a sharp tax bump in the middle years of retirement. We favor dynamic withdrawal sequencing: adjusting withdrawals year by year around your tax bracket, market returns, and income thresholds.

The planning windows that matter

The years after retirement but before Social Security and required minimum distributions (RMDs) begin are often unusually low-tax years — valuable windows to draw from tax-deferred accounts at favorable rates, or to execute Roth conversions that turn a manageable tax bill today into tax-free income later. Once RMDs begin, distributions you do not need can support continued tax-efficient growth or, for the charitably inclined, qualified charitable distributions.

Built to last as long as you do

With longer lifespans, a retirement income plan must weather decades and the inevitable down markets along the way. We design distributions with flexibility — adapting to market conditions and personal needs — and coordinate the income plan with your broader estate and legacy objectives.

This is general educational information, not individualized tax or investment advice; tax rules change and every situation differs. As a fee-only SEC Registered Investment Adviser, VSM coordinates retirement income strategy with your tax and legal advisors. See our Form ADV Part 2A for a complete description of our services.

Begin a Conversation
— 03

Tax & Liquidity Strategy

Counsel for the tax questions that accompany substantial wealth — concentrated and restricted stock, 10b5-1 plans, exchange funds, qualified small business stock, and the patient disposition of low-basis holdings — coordinated with your accountants and counsel so that what you have built is not surrendered to avoidable tax.

Tax & Liquidity Strategy

Wealth, Measured After Tax

For families of substantial means, the question is rarely what a portfolio earns — it is what remains after tax. We treat tax not as a year-end afterthought but as a standing discipline, present in every decision to buy, sell, hold, or give.

Tax-loss harvesting

By deliberately realizing losses to offset gains — without meaningfully altering market exposure — we reduce the tax consequence of investing while keeping the portfolio fully committed. Volatile markets, far from being only a threat, can become a source of valuable harvested losses.

Asset location

Where an investment is held matters as much as what you hold. We place tax-inefficient assets in tax-advantaged accounts and keep tax-efficient holdings — index funds, municipal bonds — in taxable accounts, so each dollar is sheltered as effectively as the rules allow.

Concentrated stock positions

A large position in a single company — from an employer, a sale, or an inheritance — carries real risk, yet selling can trigger a substantial capital gains tax. We help diversify thoughtfully and tax-aware over time, drawing on tools such as direct indexing and, where appropriate, options-based hedges to manage risk around the position.

Coordinated, not opportunistic

Every tax decision is coordinated with your broader plan and your tax advisors. The goal is durable wealth preservation — minimizing the drag of taxes over a lifetime rather than chasing a single year's saving.

This is general educational information, not individualized tax or investment advice; tax rules change and every situation differs. As a fee-only SEC Registered Investment Adviser, VSM coordinates tax strategy with your tax and legal advisors. See our Form ADV Part 2A for a complete description of our services.

Begin a Conversation
— 04

Estate & Legacy Architecture

Coordination with your attorneys and trustees to design trust structures, generation-skipping vehicles, and philanthropic foundations that transfer wealth — and values — with intention and tax efficiency.

Estate & Legacy Architecture

Estate Planning, in Plain Terms

Estate planning is the deliberate arrangement of who receives what, when, and on what terms — with the least tax and friction the law allows. For estates of consequence, a will alone is rarely sufficient.

It reduces estate taxes

The federal estate tax can take up to 40% of what passes above the exemption amount. Lifetime gifting, charitable strategy, and properly chosen trusts can reduce the taxable estate, so that more passes to your family and less to the Treasury. The exemption and the rules around it move with legislation — which is precisely why this planning is reviewed, not filed away.

It uses trusts to protect and direct your wealth

A trust transfers wealth on your terms. Irrevocable structures can remove assets from the taxable estate, shelter them from creditors and litigation, and keep a family’s affairs out of the public record by avoiding probate. We help you understand which structures fit — and, as importantly, which do not.

It plans the transfer between generations

Generation-skipping strategies allow wealth to pass to children and grandchildren without the same assets being taxed twice on their way down the family.

It turns charitable giving into impact

Donor-advised funds, private foundations, and charitable trusts allow a family to advance the causes it believes in, give with tax intelligence, and bring the next generation into the work of giving.

We coordinate; your attorney drafts

We are not a law firm. We work alongside your estate attorney and tax advisor — connecting your investment plan to your legacy goals, so the documents they draft and the portfolio we manage point in the same direction.

This is general educational information, not legal or tax advice; estate and tax laws change and every situation differs. VSM does not provide legal services or draft estate documents. We coordinate with your attorney and tax advisor. See our Form ADV Part 2A for a complete description of our services.

Begin a Conversation
— 05

Philanthropic Stewardship

Donor-advised funds, private foundations, and charitable trust strategies that translate philanthropic intent into enduring institutional impact — and prepare the next generation to lead.

Philanthropic Stewardship

Philanthropy, with Permanence

Philanthropy, done deliberately, advances the causes a family believes in, improves the tax character of the gift, and draws generations toward a shared purpose. The right vehicle depends entirely on intent — and we help you choose it.

Donor-advised funds

A donor-advised fund is the simplest way to give strategically. You contribute cash or appreciated assets, receive an immediate deduction, allow the funds to grow untaxed, and recommend grants on your own timetable. Gifting appreciated stock, rather than selling it first, also forgoes the capital gains tax entirely.

Private foundations

A private family foundation gives you the most control — over investments, grant-making, and the legacy that carries your family's name. It carries more administrative responsibility, including a required annual payout, but for families who want a lasting institution, it can be the right choice. Many families use a foundation and a donor-advised fund together.

Charitable trusts

Charitable remainder and lead trusts let you give appreciated assets, receive an income stream or a current deduction, and direct what remains to charity — a powerful tool around the sale of a business or a highly appreciated holding.

A family endeavor

Some of the most rewarding giving brings children and grandchildren into the decisions. We help structure giving so it becomes a way to pass on values, not just assets — and to prepare the next generation to lead.

This is general educational information, not legal or tax advice; charitable and tax rules change and every situation differs. VSM coordinates charitable strategy with your tax and legal advisors. See our Form ADV Part 2A for a complete description of our services.

Begin a Conversation
— 06

Next Generation Education

Private financial literacy curricula for heirs, governance frameworks for family councils, and confidential mentorship that prepares successors to inherit responsibility — not merely assets.

Next Generation Education

Preparing Heirs to Lead

Studies have long shown that family wealth rarely survives three generations. The reason is usually not bad investments — it is heirs who were never prepared to manage what they inherited. Preparing the next generation is, in our view, one of the most important things a family can do.

Financial literacy, taught progressively

Real preparation starts early and builds over time — simple lessons on saving and giving in childhood, investing and risk in the teenage years, and full wealth-management concepts in young adulthood. The goal is competence and confidence, not a single overwhelming handoff.

Family governance

Clear governance — family meetings, a shared mission, defined roles and decision-making — gives a family a map. It reduces conflict, keeps branches of the family aligned, and turns inherited wealth from a source of tension into a shared endeavor.

Mentorship and real responsibility

Confidence grows through experience. We help heirs build relationships with the advisors, attorneys, and accountants they will one day rely on, and we create opportunities for them to take on real responsibility under guidance — so they grow into stewards rather than merely recipients.

Values, not just assets

The aim is for the next generation to understand not only the "how" but the "why" behind the family's wealth — so they inherit purpose and responsibility, and carry the legacy forward with intention.

This is general educational information, not legal or tax advice; every family's situation differs. VSM coordinates with your other trusted advisors. See our Form ADV Part 2A for a complete description of our services.

Begin a Conversation
— 07

Family Office Administration

The quiet machinery of an outsourced family office — consolidated reporting across custodians, entities, and trusts; oversight of cash flow and household administration; and the steady coordination of trustees, accountants, and attorneys around a single, coherent plan.

V. The Practice

Behind every relationship, a team that knows your name.

We are deliberately few. The people who advise your family are the same people who answer the telephone — and the relationships we keep often outlast the generation that began them.

download

Alexander Barron

Senior Investment Counselor
The Practice

Alexander F. Barron

Senior Investment Counselor

Among the firm's earliest members, Alexander Barron joined VSM near its inception in 1992 and brings more than three decades of experience as an investment professional. He began his career with member firms of the New York Stock Exchange, serving on both the institutional and retail sides of the business, and has held the full complement of professional registrations — registered representative, general securities principal, state securities agent, and investment adviser representative.

Mr. Barron's counsel centers on portfolio advisory work attuned to the full arc of a family's needs — retirement, education, and financial planning. He has developed a particular expertise in the affairs of ultra-high-net-worth families, guiding them through the complexity that accompanies substantial and often multi-generational wealth: the coordination of concentrated holdings, the stewardship of family trusts, and the discreet, long-horizon planning that preserves a family's standing across decades. He further serves as fiduciary adviser to 401(k) and 403(b) retirement plans for businesses and non-profit institutions.

His commitment to service extends well beyond the firm. He is a volunteer personal-finance counselor with Mesila of Baltimore, a board member of Bnos Yisroel School, a past vice president and capital-campaign co-chairman of the Shearith Israel Congregation, a founding board member and instructor at Ateris Tzvi College, and a founding member and certified EMT with Hatzalah of Baltimore. A Baltimore native, he makes his home in the Cross Country neighborhood with his wife, Malka, and their five children.

Begin a Conversation
download (1)

Bryan Thaler, BFA

Senior Investment Counselor
The Practice

Bryan M. Thaler

Senior Investment Counselor & Assistant Investment Officer · BFA™

Bryan Thaler joined VSM in early 1998, the year after earning a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Towson University. He is entrusted with helping families protect and grow their assets, and with guiding them through the financial and estate-planning considerations that accompany significant wealth.

In 2019 he completed the Behavioral Financial Advice program, earning the BFA™ designation — a discipline that unites traditional finance with insights from psychology and neuroscience to strengthen judgment and temper the emotional impulses that so often undermine investors.

Mr. Thaler's stewardship has long extended to his alma mater. Over more than twenty years of service to Towson University, he chaired the Foundation's investment committee from 2012 to 2020 — helping to oversee in excess of $90 million in endowment and operating funds — and served as president of the Alumni Association and as Treasurer of the Foundation. In recognition, he received the University's Spirit of the University Award in 2005. Away from the office, he is most content in the company of his wife, three children, and the family dogs, often cheering his twin daughters from the touchline.

Begin a Conversation
download (2)

Christopher Blair, CFP, CPWA

Senior Investment Counselor
The Practice

Christopher J. Blair

Senior Investment Counselor · CFP® · CPWA®

A Baltimore native, Christopher Blair holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from Loyola University Maryland. He began his career in 2008 with a publicly held asset-management firm, where he served across retirement services, investment operations, and compliance before joining VSM in 2014.

He has since pursued the profession's most demanding credentials — earning the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation in 2018 and the Certified Private Wealth Advisor® designation in 2021. Chris works with a select group of families, guiding each through the matters that shape a lasting legacy: the careful management of their investments, the planning of retirement and income, thoughtful tax and liquidity strategy, the architecture of their estate, the giving that reflects their values, and the preparation of the next generation to one day steward what they have built. He further serves as a 3(38) investment manager for 401(k) and other qualified employer-sponsored retirement plans. Above all, he is known for the depth of his relationships — for clear, unbiased counsel and a quiet, disciplined commitment to preserving each family's wealth.

In 2020 the Baltimore Business Journal named him to its "40 Under 40," recognizing his professional accomplishments and his service to the community. He resides in Baltimore County with his wife, three children, and their dog, and gives his time to the alumni board of Loyola Blakefield and to causes throughout Baltimore.

Begin a Conversation
download (3)

Creg Hill, CRPC

Chief Executive Officer & Chief Operating Officer
The Practice

Creg Hill

Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer & Assistant Compliance Officer · CRPC®

Creg Hill leads the firm with a rare command of the full architecture of private wealth. Before joining VSM, he served as a Vice President in the Wealth Management division of PNC, where he advised affluent families and institutions across relationship management, portfolio management, private banking, and financial planning. That breadth — spanning both the advisory and operational sides of the business — equips him to oversee the practice with a fluency in every discipline upon which it depends.

A Baltimore native, Mr. Hill holds a degree in Applied Economics and earned the Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC®) designation. As Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer, he sets the firm's strategic direction, designs and refines its operations, and shapes the policies that define its culture and standard of care. His charge is to ensure that the discretion, precision, and personal attention VSM extends to each family it serves are upheld in every facet of the practice.

Away from the firm, Mr. Hill is an avid golfer, and treasures the time he spends with his wife, Caitlin, and their two children.

Begin a Conversation
download (4)

Robert Mewshaw

Founder, President & Chief Investment Officer
The Practice

Robert F. Mewshaw

Founder, President & Chief Investment Officer

Robert Mewshaw founded the practice in 1992 with a singular conviction: that families of substantial means deserve counsel unburdened by the conflicts of the brokerage world. Across more than four decades in the financial markets, he has served in nearly every professional capacity the industry affords — registered representative, commodity broker, branch manager on the New York Stock Exchange, general securities principal, and investment adviser representative — and brought that breadth to bear in building a firm devoted wholly to fiduciary advice.

His scholarship has matched his practice. Mr. Mewshaw has served on the adjunct faculty of Loyola University as an Assistant Professor of Investment Analysis, and has lectured at the graduate school of his alma mater, the University of Baltimore. He has further refined his craft through professional studies at the New York Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

As President and Chief Investment Officer, he continues to guide the firm's research, investment planning, and portfolio construction — the disciplines upon which the practice was founded and by which it endures.

Begin a Conversation
SB

Sara Bowser

Office Manager
The Practice

Sara Bowser

Office Manager

Sara Bowser has been with VSM since the very beginning — a constant presence through more than three decades of the firm's history. Few people understand a practice as intimately as the person who has helped shape its rhythm from the first day, and Sara is the quiet center around which the firm's daily life turns.

She knows the ins and outs of every client relationship — the preferences, the histories, the small details that, attended to faithfully, become the difference between service and true care. For the families VSM serves, hers is often the familiar voice on the other end of the line: discreet, unfailingly gracious, and possessed of an institutional memory that cannot be hired or taught, only earned over a lifetime of dedication.

Outside the office, Sara cherishes the time she spends with her husband and their dogs.

Begin a Conversation

Every relationship begins with a conversation

Begin a Conversation
VI. Resources

Perspectives worth your attention.

A selection of presentations on the principles that guide disciplined, evidence-based investing — drawn from the research of Dimensional and the Nobel laureates whose work informs how we think about markets.

Perspective

Tuning Out the Noise

A journey through the "lost decade" — the media's amplified coverage of headline events set against the outcome a disciplined investor could have experienced in the recovery.

Dimensional

The Power of Markets

How security prices are set — and change — through the collective knowledge of buyers and sellers, and why that should give investors confidence in the markets.

Dimensional · Jim Davis, PhD

Can You Predict a Good Time to Buy and Sell Stocks?

More than 780 tests across fifteen stock markets put the question of market timing to a rigorous, data-driven examination.

Dimensional · Nobel Thinkers

Nobel Thinkers: Theory, Practice & Implementation

A short documentary comparing the work of five recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics — and the insights their theories offer today's investors.

VII. Begin a Conversation

A private consultation, at your convenience.

New relationships at VSM begin with a confidential conversation — not a pitch, not a presentation. We accept a limited number of new relationships each year, so that the attention given to the families we already serve is never diluted. Tell us what you would like to consider, and a principal of the firm will respond to you personally.

By Telephone

410·825·8844

By Telephone

VSMWealthAdvisory@vs-m.com

Principal Office

11350 McCormick Rd
Executive Plaza 1, Ste 300
Hunt Valley, MD 21031

Request a Private Introduction

All inquiries are received in strict confidence.

Contact

Most new relationships come to VSM through the families and professional advisors we already serve. Every inquiry is read personally by a principal of the firm.