Grants in Action at the Franklin Lakes Education Foundation

A wealth manager with over three decades of experience, Ken Mathieson has served as a managing partner at Laidlaw Wealth Management (LWM), LLC, in New York City since 2017. Alongside his professional activities at LWM, Ken Mathieson has dedicated his time and resources to groups such as the Franklin Lakes Education Foundation, where he served as president in 2011 and 2012.

For more than 30 years, the Franklin Lakes Education Foundation (FLEF) has been enhancing education in Franklin Lakes Public Schools. The New Jersey-based school district receives support from the foundation in the form of grants for enrichment programs and activities.

Recent examples of programs supported by FLEF grants include a student garden at Franklin Lakes Middle School. Initiated by the school's science department, the garden gives students the opportunity to learn about nutrition, life cycles, and garden upkeep. It also gives students a chance to try new vegetables and learn new cooking techniques.

Another FLEF-funded project put Dash robots into the hands of over 200 Franklin Lakes Public Schools third graders. Through the project, students learned about coding and algorithms while teaching their robots to dance, play sports, and speak different languages.

All funding for FLEF grants is provided by parents, community members, and sponsors. More information about supporting the foundation and its work is available at www.flef.net.

Golf Digest's Top Courses in Greater New York City

An experienced wealth management executive, Ken Mathieson enjoys playing golf in his free time. As a resident of New York City, Ken Mathieson lives within comfortable driving distance of several courses that, according to Golf Digest’s 2019-20 rankings, are considered among the best in the state. These include:

1. Winged Foot Golf Club (West) - Designed by famed course architect A. W. Tillinghast, Winged Foot West stretches for 7,426 yards through the densely wooded meadowland of the New York City suburb of Mamaroneck. Standout holes include the par-3 13th and the par-4 18th, the latter of which is believed by some to be the finest closing hole in the country.

2. Bethpage State Park (Black) - This sprawling public course provides a stiff test to golfers, who must contend with narrow fairways, expansive bunkers, and other challenges befitting a layout with a high slope rating. Opened in 1936, Bethpage Black has risen in prominence in the new millennium as the host of several high-profile tournaments, including two US Opens.

3. Garden City Golf Club - A natural, minimalist course, Garden City blends elements of inland links and heathland designs. Among the Long Island layout’s distinguishing features is its deep pot bunkers, which require players to exercise caution when hitting approach shots.

Utilizing Defined Benefit Pension Plans to Lower Taxes

Retired seniors

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Based in New Jersey, Ken Mathieson offers a full range of investment solutions as managing director and founding partner of Laidlaw Asset Management, LLC, in New York. Ken Mathieson coordinates solutions that meet high-net-worth individual and family needs in areas such as educational and retirement planning. 

As highlighted in a recent Forbes article, one strategy for contractors and freelancers, as well as small business owners who inhabit high tax brackets, is to employ retirement planning as a way of decreasing tax liabilities. Money that is placed in retirement accounts can be subtracted from what the IRS considers taxable income, thereby bringing one's taxable income to a lower bracket. 

What many small business owners don’t realize is that vehicles like defined benefit (DB) pension plans are not simply for large companies. Accessible to individuals as well, they offer high contribution limits and can be combined with 401(k) and other defined contribution (DC) plans. This could lead to substantial benefits, as of this year DC plans have an upper limit of $56,000 while DB plans have upper limits of $225,000.

The Different Types of Exchange Traded Funds in a Market

The holder of an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Ken Mathieson is the managing director of Laidlaw Asset Management in New York, New York. At the firm, Ken Mathieson uses an asset allocation process to optimize clients’ return on investment while leveraging low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to provide diversification. 

Stocks Monitoring
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ETFs are marketable securities primarily created to track the performance of an underlying index or asset class. ETFs can comprise a mix of investments such as stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, and even derivatives. Here are some examples of ETFs:

- US market index ETFs. As the name says, these track market indexes. For example, the S&P 500 ETF tracks the S&P 500. These ETFs contain a broad mix of stocks traded in the indexes they track. They are, therefore, a good channel of diversification.

- Sector ETFs. These track a sector, such as pharmaceuticals. Investors who buy these ETFs gain exposure to certain sectors as a whole without having to buy individual stocks.

- Foreign market ETFs. These track the performance of foreign indexes. The EWJ tracks Japan’s Nikkei Index, and the EWG tracks the MSCI Germany Index.

- Foreign currency ETFs. These contain a broad mix of foreign currencies and give investors exposure to the currencies, which allows people to track currencies the same way they track indexes.

- Commodities ETFs. These target commodity markets such as gold and oil, enabling investors to track these markets.

Many more types of ETFs exist, including bond ETFs, style ETFs, derivative ETFs, and leveraged ETFs. Because ETFs are marketable securities, they are traded on exchanges, and their prices fluctuate as they are bought and sold on the market.