From marine to managing clients: My first 90 days as a financial advisor

In November 2025, I started as Lead Financial Advisor at Capital City Financial Partners in Charleston, SC… with no prior industry experience.

Prior to starting my role at Capital City, I’d served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps. From Reconnaissance Marine to intelligence officer, my final duty was teaching at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina. After retiring, I felt led to continue teaching and was called to rebuild a failing high school JROTC program, which transformed into one of the top units in the country three years later.

While I didn’t come into this field through a typical path, those years of leadership, education, and decision-making experience were quietly laying the groundwork for a transition I hadn’t yet considered. What I didn’t realize yet was how directly those experiences would shape the path that led me into financial planning.

My path to finding financial planning

The shift to my new career started back in 2020 (unbeknownst to me). I was going through a divorce, and I thought I had a fairly good grasp of personal finance. Turns out I still had a lot to learn. That experience kicked off my research into personal finance, and I learned that there were people (financial planners) who truly helped people with their finances.

Meanwhile, I was teaching Naval Science at The Citadel. I was responsible for preparing soon-to-be military officers to lead, and I realized they were about to enter service with zero financial education. Young Marines don’t exactly have the best financial habits. How were these officers going to effectively mentor their Marines without their own knowledge?

Traditionally, the school would invite a local banker or broker-dealer advisor to campus to “teach” personal finance, but those sessions felt more like sales pitches than empowering smart decisions. So, I took over the lessons. That was my first real experience teaching personal finance in a way that served others. It was eye-opening and planted the seed for what would come next.

When I retired from the military in 2021, I took a temporary defense contracting job before receiving a call from the Marine Corps. They asked me to take over a struggling JROTC program in Southern California, which just so happened to be my daughter’s former high school.

I didn’t plan to go into high school education, but I knew I could help. I made selfless service and teamwork our top priorities, and over the next three years, we turned that program around.

In 2025, El Camino High School became a nationally ranked Naval Honor School. But again, I kept coming back to personal finance. I was helping students and families make financial decisions around college. I took joy in helping families problem-solve. The work had meaning and long-term impact, and I heard people tell me, “You should really think about doing this for a living.”

By 2024, I decided to pursue financial planning as my full-time profession. I enrolled in Biola University’s CFP Board Registered Graduate Program using the rest of my GI Bill and began preparing for a career pivot.

Getting experience & building my resume

As a career changer in my 40s, I was already thinking about how I would boost my resume beyond my grad program. I knew I likely wouldn’t land (or be able to take) a traditional internship, but I needed a bridge between theory and practice to showcase on my resume. One of my options was the Amplified Planning Externship.

I’d first heard about The Externship on a podcast in 2022 during a long drive through Arizona, and I remembered it again as I was moving toward my last semester.

So last summer, while wrapping up my capstone, I enrolled in the 2025 Externship program. I got to use the “tools of the trade” and see how planners approached the real work involved in planning for clients. More importantly, I finally got to see what real client meetings looked like – something no classroom had given me.

Through the Externship, I not only gained practical exposure, but I also started connecting with industry professionals. Each week, three industry ‘experts’ would speak on a specific topic. I followed the advice from others on how to make the most of my 8 weeks in this program, and I connected with the guest speakers on LinkedIn, asking questions and letting them know that I really wanted to learn.

All of the Externship experts were incredibly supportive, each one of them accepting my LinkedIn connections. Many replied to my DMs, and many more offered additional resources, connections, or mentorship. But one of those conversations turned into an opportunity that led to my job now, as a lead advisor.

Getting hired without experience

After taking the Externship and completing my registered program, I made connections that eventually led to a potential job in South Carolina, somewhere I definitely hadn’t been looking (I lived in Southern California). That connection let me know they thought I was a great candidate, and they encouraged me to apply for a job opening they had. So I did – and got an instant rejection email.

That didn’t feel great, but thankfully, the person I’d connected with reached back out and said, “You might get an automatic rejection. You don’t meet any of the qualifications we need, but we want to talk to you.”

I figured if anything, this would make for good interview practice, so I said yes. I didn’t have my licenses, I didn’t have experience, and I didn’t even live on the East Coast yet. But I got through three successful rounds of interviews as they kept inviting me back.

That’s because I did have something the firm valued: maturity, relationship-building skills, and a strong sense of why I was entering the profession. They told me, “We can teach you the technical side. What matters is that you know how to listen and build trust with clients.”

They offered me the job in August, and they were gracious enough to wait three months for me to relocate and wrap up my teaching contract. I’ve never taken that vote of confidence for granted.

My first 90 days as an IAR

I started in November; my first few weeks were intense, but not unexpected. In order to meet the terms of my offer, I had to pass my Series 65 (done in October, right before starting), get my life and health licenses, and do an intensive month-long training at my new firm’s headquarters.

The first few weeks were really seeing the client process: shadowing meetings, taking notes, and watching seasoned advisors navigate conversations. The rest of the training was operations and backend operations: workflows, paperwork, and learning the technology. That was all done at the end of 2025, and on January 1st, I was cleared to start running client meetings under supervision.

While it was a little intimidating, I definitely felt “more ready” than others in my situation might have. Not because I had every technical answer, but because I’d already seen what real conversations looked like, through the Externship and the intensive training my firm offered.

Thanks to my intelligence officer experience, I also knew how to manage different personalities and build trust. That’s the foundation of this profession, after all: gaining and maintaining trust.

My next 90 days

This is my first full year working as a lead advisor, and it’s going to be a busy one. I sit for the CFP Board exam this July. I’m studying hard and continuing to learn from every client meeting. I’m also planning something special: an anniversary celebration with the clients who trusted me in year one. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here.

While I know there’s much to learn, I’m grateful for the experience in my first 90 days. This work has proven meaningful, client-centered, and relationship-based. I also get to use the skills I’ve built throughout my career, even though my work looked different then than it does now.

When Capital City Financial Partners decided to bring me on, they didn’t need someone who already knew how to do Roth conversions. They needed someone who could sit across from a client and manage the relationship with professionalism and empathy.

That’s what career changers like myself bring: perspective, resilience, emotional intelligence, and the ability to translate past experiences into real value for clients. I also think programs like the Externship are making this transition more accessible, giving people like me a chance to see what this profession really looks like, and helping firms see what we’re capable of.

My message to any career changers and aspiring planners out there: Doors will open, doors will close. You have to have faith and trust that the right opportunity will come – because it absolutely will.

John Moreno is a lead financial advisor at Capital City Financial Partners.