Willow Creek Wealth Management

Financial adviser Jason Gittins, a principal of Willow Creek Wealth Management in Sebastopol, Calif., said that no magic or secret sauce has gotten his firm of six advisers to its current level of success. Since the firm's last Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Willow Creek has crossed the threshold of $500 million in assets under management, he said. “I wish I could say there was something sexy to point to, but we have frankly just been focused on giving our clients the best experience possible,” Mr. Gittins said. Referrals from existing customers account for most new-client growth. The fee-only firm uses passive portfolios built from an allocation mix of shares from Dimensional Fund Advisors, iShares and The Vanguard Group Inc. “That makes up our core holdings, but we use our own proprietary re-balancing methodology,” Mr. Gittins said. It is built on a Microsoft Access database and is linked up with the firm's portfolio management system, Orion Advisor Services. And steady, continuous improvement in its technology processes makes up the core of how the firm intends to grow to the next level, Mr. Gittins said. For example, Willow Creek is working closely with Orion to better integrate its own investment policy statement generation process into Orion and thereby help automate and streamline the asset allocation and account setup process with new clients.