Jock Zollinger

What sparked your interest in financial planning? What fuels you every day in your work?

Back in college, I would find myself always preparing for the next semester of classes by mapping out my coursework until graduation. I would create a base plan and then continue to mess around with different “what-if’s” to see how I could optimize my schedule for the perfect balance of homework and maintaining a social life. I ended up creating an excel template and sharing this with many of my friends to help them with their own class scheduling. Merging this experience with my interest in finance and experience as a peer financial coach at Liberty University helped shape my understanding of and spark my interest in financial planning. Providing value to others that may help impact future generations is what I find fulfilling in my everyday work.

What do you feel is a strength that you have?

I feel that I am great at understanding people and what makes a person different in their own, unique way. Beginning a conversation with someone can usually start the same way, but many times there are multiple moments of emotion that one can go through with each question asked. I love getting to know people and taking time to hear their stories in hopes of fostering a strong relationship.

When you retire you’re going to…?

I am planning on spending my time giving back to the community by supporting things that have helped shape me into the person that I am today. I would love to become a professor at a university someday, so that could be a soft retirement plan. I would also like to take time to support my local church wherever I am and serve others. In times of rest, I would also love to have a cabin out in Wyoming or Utah and go hiking every now and then.

Where did you grow up? Where do you live now?

I was born and raised in Wooster, Ohio which is about an hour south of Cleveland, so go Browns! I grew up where the only kind of traffic in town was tractors and Amish buggies, so moving to Charlotte has been quite an adjustment. I love it here with all the culture and convenience that I get with city life, and I look forward to making a lot of new connections here.