There’s a certain way of doing business in Maine that doesn’t translate well into a brochure or even a Mainebiz profile. You show up when you say you will. You tell the truth even when it is hard. You don’t sell people things they don’t need. That’s not a philosophy we invented. It’s just how we were raised. It’s the reason clients have trusted us for over 45 years, and it’s the reason we still do business the same way we always have.
Lebel & Harriman is built differently, by choice.
A large share of the advisors serving businesses and families today are within a decade of retiring, and many of their firms are being acquired by private equity buyers and national consolidators. The pace has picked up over the last few years, and it shows little sign of slowing. For the business owner or executive on the other end of that relationship, the result is often a new name on the door and a new voice on the phone.
We are an independent, Maine-owned advisory firm, and we plan to stay both. Ownership already sits with the next generation of partners, our team includes a deep bench of younger professionals, and the people who will run this firm in 20 years are the ones building client relationships today. We know how much that continuity matters.
Two teams, each built for its own work
We serve two distinct populations, and we built a specialized team for each. One works with organizations. The other works with people. Most clients eventually touch both.
Employer Financial Services
Our Employer Financial Services team works with businesses, nonprofits, and business owners across Maine and beyond. Today, we advise on more than 250 retirement plans and over $6 billion in assets under advisement, and we have kept 99.8% of our plan sponsor clients over the past three years.
The core of the work is running workplace financial & retirement benefits well. We serve our retirement plan clients as a 3(21) or 3(38) fiduciary so committees are not carrying their legal responsibilities alone. We review vendors and fees, benchmark plan design, and build and monitor the plan’s investment lineup with transparent reporting on performance and cost. Committees meet with us on a set schedule, we document every decision for the fiduciary file, and we don’t hide behind industry jargon or overly technical language. We make it easy to do business.
More than just funds, fees, and fiduciaries, we support and invest in Maine’s remarkable HR community. As more people look to their employer for a diverse set of employee benefit needs, a disproportionate amount of work is falling on HR & Finance teams to navigate and manage these sprawling programs. Our clients know that their L&H Relationship Managers are only ever a call or email away when times get tough.
Most important, we spend real time in front of employees. Our financial education and wellness programming reaches participants at every life stage, from the new hire enrolling for the first time to the employee mapping out the last few years before retirement. Engaged participants make better decisions, and employee outcomes are our ‘why.’ We are in the taking care of people business.
“We live in the same towns as the people in our care. We run into them at the grocery store and stand next to them at the ball field, and that closeness keeps us committed to the work.”
— Laurie Reed, Partner, Managing Director, Senior Relationship Manager
And we staff for it. Every employer gets a team by name: a retirement advisor for fiduciary and plan oversight, a relationship manager for the day-to-day, and a retirement counselor working directly with employees on education and wellness.
“Many of these team members are the next generation of Lebel & Harriman professionals, the third and fourth generation to carry the work, and they are building the client relationships that will define this firm 20 years from now.”
— Jennifer Breton, CEO, Partner, Senior Retirement Advisor
The needs of employers keep expanding, and our services have expanded with them. We build executive benefit and nonqualified deferred compensation programs that help companies attract and keep the leaders they depend on. We guide owners through business transition and succession, from valuation through the sale or internal transfer, so the company and its people are protected on the way out.
Personal Financial Services
Our Personal Financial Services team works with individuals, families, employees, and executives. We handle financial planning, investment management, insurance and risk management, and legacy planning.
Our clients often are an employee approaching retirement, an executive weighing a deferred compensation or stock option election, an owner who has just sold the business: each reaches a point where the employer side and the personal side become one. Our relationship with them grows organically, the way relationships tend to when they’re built on trust.
Our planning team picks it up from there, often working alongside a client’s CPA and estate attorney so the pieces hold together across taxes, investments, insurance, and estate documents. For senior executives, we coordinate the personal plan with their employer’s benefit programs so nothing falls between the two.
Our investment approach is long-term and goals based. We build portfolios around what a client is working toward, rebalance and monitor them actively, and invest with an eye toward tax efficiency across accounts. The insurance and risk work covers life insurance, long-term care, annuities, and irrevocable life insurance trusts, each matched to a client’s actual situation. For clients who give, donor advised funds bring the same planning discipline to their charitable goals.
Every client has a dedicated service team and a financial plan we review on a regular cadence. We manage the trading, distributions, and rollovers, keep the plan current as life changes, and make sure a real person answers when they call. Many of the families we work with might have first found us through their workplace plan and now have stayed for multiple generations.
Why specialization matters now
When a client’s life runs across both sides, our teams handle it together. An owner we have supported for years decides to sell the company, and the people who ran their retirement plan stay in the room while our planning team builds what comes next. Same firm, same faces, no handoff to a stranger.
That structure matters more every year. Retirement plan rules keep shifting under SECURE 2.0. Executive compensation, business transitions, and personal tax planning are all growing more technical. Employers and the people inside them need an advisor who can go deep on each of these and keep the connections between them in view. Few Maine firms are staffed to do all of it under one roof.
A firm built for the long run
The reason we can promise continuity is that we have built for it. Ownership already includes the next generation of the firm: Partners Matt Arey and Nate Moody, alongside Laurie Reed and Jennifer Breton. We hire early in careers and promote from within, so no client depends on any one person being at their desk.
The office does not look like your typical financial firm. People gather mid-room to recap a client meeting, celebrate a new relationship, and post the week’s good news on a whiteboard for everyone to see. That culture is why people join us and stay, and part of why we keep landing on the Best Places to Work in Maine list.
Our industry has taken notice too. Lebel & Harriman has been named a NAPA Top DC Advisory Firm (2022-2026), partner Nate Moody was named PLANADVISER’s 2026 Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year, and our clients have earned PLANSPONSOR Plan Sponsor of the Year honors.
Where we come from, and where we are going
Mike Lebel and Phil Harriman founded the firm in 1978 on a then-unusual idea: give clients advice in their best interest and do what’s right. The idea they started with still runs the place.
Most of what we care about now sits ahead of us. We have built a young, independent, Maine-owned firm with two specialized teams and an ownership group that intends to be here for decades. For a business or an executive choosing an advisor for the next 20 years, we plan to still be here when it matters. Independent, local, and still us.
Disclaimer: Securities offered through Valmark Securities, Inc. Member FINRA, SIPC. Investment Advisory Services offered through Valmark Advisers, Inc. a SEC Registered Investment Advisor. | 130 Springside Drive, Suite 300, Akron, OH 44333-2431 | Telephone: (800) 765-5201 | Lebel & Harriman, LLP and Lebel & Harriman Retirement Advisors are separate entities from Valmark Securities, Inc. and Valmark Advisers, Inc. / Statistics as of 12/31/25. Recognitions reference awards received by Lebel & Harriman, its team members, or a plan sponsor the firm advises. PLANADVISER named partner Nate Moody its 2026 Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year (Closing the Coverage Gap category), a national editorial recognition selected from nominations and finalist judging. A nonprofit plan sponsor advised by the firm received a PLANSPONSOR Plan Sponsor of the Year award (2023). Award criteria and full methodology available on request. The firm pays a fee to be a NAPA Firm Partner but did not pay a fee for inclusion in the NAPA recognition, and no fee was paid for the PLANADVISER recognition. Awards are not indicative of future performance and are not a guarantee of any client’s future experience. Per-award disclosure language to be confirmed with compliance before publication. / We offer both fee-based advisory services and commission-based products. Financial professionals may act as Investment Adviser Representatives when providing advisory services for a fee, or as Registered Representatives when recommending or selling commission-based products. The role in which the financial professional is acting and how they are compensated will be disclosed at the time of the recommendation or transaction.
