My name's Darrel Orpen. I'm an Investment Advisor working with Levesque Securities right now. I've been in the financial field probably 10 - 12 years, ranging across quite a variety of activities. These have included venture capital corporations, small business start-ups, public offerings, financial planning with large institutions, Crown Life in particular and then dealing over here as an Investment Advisor where I deal with individuals. It's nice to be able to sit down with an individual, their family and say "Do you have your retirement planned?" and the usual answer is "No we have no retirement plan right now, we're kind of doing this but we don't know where we're going to be in 15, 20, 25 years." I ask them how much they're gonna be worth, what kind of standard of living they're gonna have when they retire, again the answer is usually "we're not really sure". So what we like to do is to devise a plan for them, structure for them, for their investment strategies such that we know what they've got now, what they're gonna be flowing in over the years, what they're gonna have to take out of it and will that get them to where they want to be when they retire. We have the expertise and the models and the experience and the research and the support staff that allows us to get them to where they want to be with a high degree of probability.

When I was young I was always interested in stocks, the stock market and the more I explored into it the more interested I got. My training at University being in Accounting and Finance, sort of led into a familiarity with the area. Friends and family, my brother for example, they were into the stock market and Stock Brokering Investment Advisors too, Financial Planning and so it's just an attraction I followed the way on that one too. It's always been an area that has interested me so it's not difficult for me to say I'd like to come and do this everyday all day cause it's just a subject area that keeps me interested.

Well there are some particular training required by the Securities Exchange Commission. In fact they have built certain conditions required by individuals such as myself so that they know there is a degree of quality out in there, out in the public area, that is offered by us. It's not a person can just randomly become an Investment Advisor. They have to give evidence of knowledge, evidence of training, evidence of some degree of expertise, evidence of some background. My training is Bachelor of Administration, Bachelor of Arts from the University of Regina, specific CMA designations - Certified Management Accountant Designation worked in after those years. Following on that it's various courses in terms of options, in terms of the Canadian Securities Course, in terms of professional financial planning and expanding on those ones, continuous expanding on those ones to the future to make sure I stay abreast of all new knowledge and new developments in that field.

One of the key characteristics that a person needs is the ability to deal with people. I am sitting down with families, individuals, I am meeting their friends, I am meeting their referrals. I am meeting new people all the time. For me to be effective, I have to have the ability to deal with these people. If you don't enjoy dealing with people, how are you gonna develop a client base. Same with like a Lawyer developing a client base or an Accountant developing a client base. You can get into the technical end. There are chartered Financial Analysts and all they do is crunch numbers. They do the analysis of the companies and we feed from that research so that we can pick the proper stocks, design the correct portfolio's that our clients will need.

Within this position too, teamwork skills also are very important. I am dealing regularly with a number of people within my firm and outside the firm here that are making me stay abreast of the current levels of knowledge and the current information, the current events that are being required there. I'm on the phone regularly to our staff and our support staff down in Montreal and Toronto, Edmonton also. So you're regularly dealing with people that give the specific areas of expertise that I, as an individual, don't have. Likewise, the teamwork required, when you're dealing hand-in-hand with clients all the time, you become a team with them, looking at the portfolio that is your responsibility now and working with them as a team, you make sure their portfolio and their investments get them to where they want to be.

The typical day for me is coming into the office, try to get here as early as I can, and that'll vary on days according to responsibilities of the day and we'll come in and do the immediate work to prepare for the day, check out the information that has come in over the wires at night and see how it relates to my needs from the previous day. I'll be looking at the schedule I set up the previous evening to see what obligations I have for the day and the timing of that one too. It will then be on the phone getting to my clients and have their particular needs to be met that day and seeing data I'm getting from the computer screens and from the fax machines and from the phone calls. Then following upon that, this will be again dealing with particular meetings and particular obligations in the afternoon, dealing with the larger office in effect. The day winds down again by me taking a look at the day and making sure the schedule's were met, making sure that that days' obligations were met. Following upon that, setting up the scheduling and the obligations for the next day and then just keep repeating on that.

I think the most challenging aspect of my job is the continuous meeting of new people, trying to introduce to them some ideas that they really haven't thought about for a long time or that they've never encountered. We've had many instances of people coming in the door and not having the awareness of what investments are about. They've got a general idea of mutual funds, they've heard of stocks, they've got a general idea of Canada Bonds, but no real idea about what they all mean in terms of organising them such that they're gonna give them a good quality investment strategy, getting them to where they want to be.

One of the things I would like to change about the job, and this is not taking away from my current situation, is that it would be nice to be in a larger centre than Regina. Here there's 175,000 people and relative to investment needs and financial planning, there's a large number out there that don't have a need of this service, so therefore, there's not as large a client base that you can readily access as you can in a larger centre.

There is one thing that I would do differently and that would be having a direct focus on the specific training that would be needed for the Investment Industry and the Securities Industry coming right out of High School. If I was coming out of High School right now it would be getting my Bachelor of Administration or Bachelor of Commerce, depending on the University and then getting a Masters Degree in Finance and then getting a Chartered Financial Analyst. The level of knowledge that would give you at the age of 25, 26, 27 would be Senior and that get you at a very strong position within the industry. It would be such that your level of knowledge at the age of 30, 35, 40 would be Senior in the country, relative to that industry and all it takes is a good commitment, get your Bachelor of Commerce and couple more years finish off your Masters Degree, extending the kind of training you were taking at your Bachelor of Commerce. You've got to love this, I mean if you come in here with just a flippin' attitude that's saying "I'm gonna put part hours into this", you're gonna get lost cause this is a huge industry. Once you start to catch the emotion of this, it's just an enormous amount of fun. You are in touch with the world and everything that relates to that.