Two LSU graduates recently achieved the title of Certified Financial Planner Practitioner. Having weathered more than a year of classes and exams, both Pete Bush, who received his bachelor’s in management in 1990, and Shari Yount, who received her bachelor’s in real estate in 1990 and her M.B.A. in 1993, were named to the CFP Board. This is an exclusive and extremely reputable organization to which only 13 percent of all financial advisors are admitted.

Bush, a former LSU baseball player, is a partner with Horizon Wealth Management LLC. Yount is the director of Financial Planning for the same firm.

“This is a significant achievement for our firm, as well as for the two of us personally,” Bush said. “It further demonstrates our ongoing dedication to continuing our professional education to better serve our clients’ financial planning needs.”

Stringent ethical evaluations and experience requirements, an adherence to evolving standards and expectations in the field, and a passing score on the CFP Certification Exam are just some of the innumerable criteria necessary for acceptance to the CFP Board. The test, which spans 10 hours over two days, covers subjects ranging from tax management and retirement planning to employee benefits and investments.

Most impressively, of the 55,000 certified practitioners across the country, Bush and Yount help constitute the less than one percent of that number who hail from Louisiana.