Deep in the Heart of Texas

In Corsicana, which counted no fewer than 21 millionaires back in the early 1950s, Chapman and Slovak have something of celebrity status. Once, when Slovak was stopped by a highway patrolman, she was happily let go without a ticket, her name recognized from the daily market reports she and Chapman broadcast on local radio.

The long-time firm, which became a broker-dealer, Investment Planning Associates, in 1953, is today moving from transaction-based to fee-based compensation. The main challenge there, says Chapman, is “letting people know you’re worth the fees. A lot of them want something for nothing.”

For her part, Mom Billie isn’t quite sold on the fee-based route. “I would just rather make a commission when I do well. But I try not to tell Beth what to do.”

The team focuses on the big picture by learning as much as it can about clients. And rely they do on IPI for all manner of financial advice. Recently, one woman, who started out with Billie years ago, brought ’round a car salesman for Chapman’s stamp of approval before purchasing a Toyota. “I said, ‘You can afford to buy it. Enjoy it!’” she recalls.

Says client Van Limerick, 61, of nearby Malakoff, who took early retirement five years ago to care for his wife, who has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair: “Beth is very patient and compassionate. Were it not for her, I don’t know if I ever would have been able to manage this. She consolidated my pension and all our investments. It’s worked out real well.”

Bill and Billie Robinson met while working at the local pilot-training center during World War II. (“He was the auditor. I was chief payroll clerk. I thought I’d get a raise if I was nice to him,” cracks Billie.). Twenty-eight years after opening up shop, Bill died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 54. Billie took over.

Fifteen years later, in 1990, Chapman quit training to be a car dealership-comptroller and came aboard. This was three years after brother Bruce had joined the family concern. However, when Billie turned over the business to both siblings in 2000, the two disagreed on the direction the firm would take. Bruce left, whereupon Beth was made sole owner, changing the company name to Investment Planning, Inc. Slovak moved up to licensed securities principal a year after joining in 2000.

It was hardly a snap, though, for Chapman to take the reins. “The financial industry is still kind of a man’s world,” she says. “Women have to be a class act and prove still that we’re smart with numbers and know how to do the best thing for our clients. Guys have a leg up simply because they’re men.”

As for Billie, she nowadays puts in time mostly hand-holding clients and taking continuing ed courses online.

Also, “I get on the computer and see how much my stocks have gone up and down. I love individual stocks. The oil stocks have saved me,” she says. “Some clients ask, ‘Should I buy more oils?’ I’ve tried to tell all of them that they should have bought more oils a long time ago. I think that now maybe it’s not such a good idea.”

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Freelance writer Jane Wollman Rusoff is a Los Angeles-based contributing editor of Research and is the founder of Family Star Productions.