Finance major Lucy Nabedrick ’28 has amazing organizational skills. First, there’s the work of a full academic load. On top of that, varsity tennis takes up to 24 hours of each week. And she’s also the alumni chair for her sorority, the standards chair for Greek council, and treasurer for the Student Athletic Advisory Committee. And she’s extending her summer internship into the school year at the Bank of Texas. (It’s no surprise she was nominated for an Emerging Student Leader Award last spring.)
Nabedrick really doesn’t have time for anything else. Except, she’s been nominated to be the first student ever to serve on the board of the Financial Planning Association of San Antonio & South Texas. Members will vote on Sept. 15, with her three-year term set to begin in 2027.
“It’s a lot,” the Minneapolis-area native says about her dual roles of student athlete and budding professional. “I like to say yes to everything. When I have a schedule and don’t have time to goof around–that keeps me on track.”
Nabedrick says her work ethic isn’t unique among her peers at Trinity University. “Everyone just wants to be the best versions of themselves,” Nabedrick says. “There’s something special about Trinity students that we want to push ourselves.” They also learn time-management skills and self-care to keep the balance!
She seized a networking opportunity most overlook
After taking Trinity’s Finance Career Planning Course, Nabedrick was inspired to look into ways to jumpstart her future career in wealth management, which, among other skills, includes financial planning. That’s how she found the San Antonio chapter of the FPA.
Nabedrick not only became a member, but dove into volunteerism. She proposed a university outreach initiative with career panels, networking, and mentorship connections to FPA members. She’s also floated a student mentoring program so students walk into events with a familiar face instead of a room of strangers.
“She didn’t wait to be asked,” says Jordan Wright, president of the local FPA board and a financial advisor and senior vice president of Broadway Wealth Solutions Inc. “We met at a chapter meeting in February, Lucy followed up herself about our student outreach, and she’s been working ever since.”
At FPA meetings, students like Nabedrick find out that financial planning is a real career with a lot of variety in it, Wright adds. They meet practitioners face-to-face, which is how internships and first jobs actually happen in this town.
And financial planning jobs are about to become more plentiful. Younger people are seeking out professional financial advice more than ever, per the CFA Institute. And these younger clients want young financial advisors who will stick with them over the years. With the average age of an American financial advisor at 56 and around 20% of these professionals set to retire in the next five years, there’s a real opportunity for Trinity students to fill those gaps.
“There’s this panache around investment banking among finance majors” says Brian Korb, Ph.D., Prassel Professor of Professional Practice in Finance at Trinity. “Most students want to be Wall Streeters. Financial planning gets overlooked, but it shouldn’t.”
Wright says having students like Nabedrick in their membership and on their board gives the FPA a better idea of how to attract young talent to the field. “She keeps us honest about whether our programming actually appeals to anyone under 25,” he says.
Nabedrick hopes to make professional networking easier for students
Nabedrick’s most critical role as an FPA board member might be the simplest: helping other Trinity students get comfortable walking into a roomful of working professionals twice their age. “A student hears ‘come to a financial planning event’ very differently from a peer than from a 50-year-old advisor,” Wright says. “Lucy removes the intimidation factor.”
The first time Nabedrick showed up to an FPA meeting, she admits, she was sweating. But everyone is nothing but nice, she assures, and they want to help you. “It’s a really cool experience to not be the smartest person in the room, and just sit back and listen to what these super successful professionals have to say.”