Erin Scannell said he’s wired for family and community.

The Mercer Island resident also thrives in the personal finance realm and was recently ranked as the Forbes No. 1 wealth adviser in Washington for the third consecutive year.

Additionally, the founder and CEO of the Island’s Heritage Wealth Advisors has led his team to another No. 2 Forbes ranking on its Top 100 Wealth Management Firms list and on Barron’s Top Wealth Management Teams List.

For the last 25 years, Scannell has been helming Heritage — a private wealth advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services, LLC — and has spent the last 15 years running his firm on the Island.

“Doing business on the Island has been nice because it’s a small, tight community, and we just know a lot of people on a personal level and socially,” said Scannell, who resides on the Island with his wife, Kara, and their kids. Kara, who is Heritage’s marketing director, was born and raised on the Island.

While headquartered downtown, Heritage’s mostly local team members participate in community events like Summer Celebration, Halloween trick or treating, the First Friday Art Walk and more. Currently, Heritage is housed in a more visible location than before in the old HSBC Bank location at 2630 77th Ave. SE, Suite 110.

Scannell launched his fully family- and employee-owned business directly after graduating from the University of Washington and now has 13 offices situated across multiple states. Keeping Heritage independent and headquartered on Mercer Island are crucial parts of his game plan.

Originally based in Seattle, Heritage possessed a couple Mercer Island clients who pointed Scannell toward the Island to check into living and setting up shop there. The sales pitch succeeded and it’s been all Island ever since.

When he was young, Scannell’s dad steered him toward the financial world. Later, Scannell took an interest in guiding others along their financial paths while avoiding pitfalls.

“He’d send me these compound interest tables. I got wired to think in financial terms. And I saw a lot of people get taken advantage of by financial advisers, including my mom got taken advantage of pretty bad by a financial adviser when I was growing up,” he said.

Scannell said that Heritage’s top core value is making an impact on its clients to help them achieve maximum satisfaction financially and personally in their lives. A favorite quote of his is, “Stop living life with the emergency brake on.”

“The clients we work with tend to do pretty well financially. They work with us because we want to help them optimize what they can get out of their money. So we produce a lot of tax savings for people, and we’re able to help them figure out ways to give more to charity than they figured they could afford to do, or give more money to their kids than they figured they could afford to do,” he said.

It’s been a gratifying career avenue that Scannell has chosen to traverse for the last quarter of a century and counting.

“I’ve been lucky to work with over a thousand people, families, to help them make better decisions and help them achieve their goals,” he said.

From day one of his time with Heritage, Scannell has toted his financial knowledge to elementary, middle and high school students in their classrooms as a volunteer adviser. During the workshops, he said the kids at local and off-Island schools get fired up while learning about financial concepts like the difference between good debt and bad debt and compound interest, IRAs and more.

“In the elementary schools, I’m often doing exercises with them that are values-oriented that will lead to them making good money decisions,” he said.

For more information, visit: https://www.ameripriseadvisors.com/team/heritage-wealth-advisors/