Steven DevlinCEPA

Steve's test for the business is that it should complement three things: his faith, the importance of family, and delivering the highest level of care to clients and the goals they have for their lives. Understanding what someone wants, what worries them, and what they are comfortable with is what points the advice somewhere useful. He likes being part of clients' lives, and he invites them into his.

He has been in the industry since 1998. The career started with insurance companies, writing long-term care plans to protect what people had already built. Reviewing those plans year after year turned into relationships, and the relationships turned into life insurance and then investments.

By 2004 he had moved to the work he does now: retirement and income planning. The job is to hand someone specific steps, both before retirement and during it, for drawing income, investing what is left, protecting it, and keeping the tax bill down while all of that happens.

In 2013 he went out on his own as a business owner, and began the partnership with Level Four Financial that the practice still runs under. He served several years on Level Four's CEO Advisory Committee, helping shape how the firm gives advice.

At 38, and again at 39, advisors across Virginia selected him as one of the state's top financial advisors under 40, in the 4 Under 40 program. In 2022 Top 100 Magazine named him one of the Top 100 People in Finance. In 2023 Financial Advisor Magazine interviewed him and Level Four about the wealth management programs they have built inside local banks and credit unions.

Most of what he has built since is the team. Between them they handle financial and retirement planning, investment analysis, portfolio management, accumulation and income distribution, protected growth products, cash management, major purchase and gifting strategies, tax and estate planning, business succession, Medicare and Social Security evaluations, and preparing families for an inheritance. Business decisions take in the advice of a client advisory committee first, so the client's interest is in the room when they are made.

He holds a 1998 Bachelor of Business Administration from Roanoke College, and has kept up industry study since in retirement income planning, financial planning, investment management, tax strategies, insurance planning, and business succession.

Steve married Meggen in 2004. They have six children and live in Botetourt County. He has served on various community boards over the years, though most of his free time now goes to coaching sports teams and mentoring middle school, high school, and college students. His favorite places to be are Massanutten and the family home at Ocean Lakes in South Carolina.