Scott M. Buttfield, CFP®, AIF®, Member: NAPFA
Scott Buttfield is a 30-year veteran of the financial services industry who helps socially conscious clients make sense of their financial affairs and use their wealth to make a positive difference in the world.
Scott graduated in 1975 from Roanoke College in Salem Virginia, receiving a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree with a tri-major in Psychology, Business, and Economics, which has served him well in his financial services career. He then spent two years on Wall Street with Garban Limited, working as a “broker’s broker” in the primary market for government securities dealers.
Eventually, Scott felt a stronger calling to commit his life to making a difference rather than simply making a lot of money. He left Wall Street in early 1978 to spend two years as a consultant/salesman for a small solar energy company. In 1980, Scott developed an energy audit and began knocking on doors. The business took off, and within a few months, he was doing two to three audits a day, six to seven days a week.
While satisfying, the pace was grueling, and Scott also began to consider how he might be able to make a difference to a larger group of people. He decided to parlay his energy conservation experience into the larger arena of commercial and industrial applications. Working for an Energy Services Company (ESCO), Scott offered shared savings as a means of financing energy improvements, whereby the company finances the project, and is later repaid with a share of the energy savings generated over a number of years. While with the company, Scott put together a very successful $750,000 project for the City Hall complex of Newark, New Jersey. It was the first of its kind in the country.
While developing and negotiating this project with the city council, engineering, finance, and legal departments, as well as local contractors to affect the work, Scott faced the challenging issues of race and poverty that were present in the city at that time. This experience gave Scott a new level of compassion and appreciation for what many people in our society are forced to deal with. He subsequently broadened his social consciousness beyond just energy conservation. Scott left the field of energy to return to the field of finance, earning his Certified Financial Planner ™ (CFP®) designation in 1990. He earned the Accredited Investment Fiduciary™ (AIF®) designation in 2004, his firm, Buttfield & Associates is a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) with the state of New Jersey, and he is Investment Advisory Representative (IAR) with First Affirmative Financial Network, LLC.
In particular, Scott was drawn to the specialty area of finance known as Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) as the next step after first establishing a solid financial strategy. Today, his career has come full circle. Scott offers traditional financial planning combined with strategic asset management SRI programs on a fee-only basis, expressing his passion for affecting positive social change through the power and leverage of Socially Responsible Investing.