Wealth management for government contracting executives

Government contracting produces a distinctive balance sheet. A large share of household net worth sits in a privately held company, often one the household helped build, and it is entirely illiquid right up until the moment a sale, recapitalization, or employee stock ownership plan makes it abruptly otherwise. Public-market asset allocation advice, applied to the liquid remainder, addresses the smaller half of the problem.

The concentration is also correlated in ways that are easy to overlook. The company's revenue, the executive's salary, the deferred compensation, and often the value of the house all depend on the same regional economy and, frequently, on the same handful of contract vehicles. A budget cycle that goes badly does not affect one line of the plan; it affects four at once.

Deferred compensation adds a second layer. Plans differ enough between contractors that the distribution schedule, the creditor position, and the tax treatment have to be read rather than assumed — and the election windows that determine all three tend to arrive long before anyone is thinking about them.

The useful work, then, is mostly about sequencing. What can be diversified now without signaling anything. What has to wait for a liquidity event. What elections are coming and when they close. And what the plan looks like in the version of the future where the exit takes five years longer than expected, which is the version most families have not modeled.