About Us

Harvey M. J. Ames, MBA, CFP®, AIFA®, ChFC, CLU
Founder/President

In 1988, Harv Ames founded Ames Planning Associates, Inc., a SEC-registered investment advisor. As a fee-only fiduciary advisor, Harv provides comprehensive financial life planning and counseling, estate planning, portfolio management, investment advising, financial management and business consulting. Ames Planning Associates has been recognized by Bloomberg Wealth Manager Magazine as one of the top wealth managers in the country.

As an investment advisor, Harv takes particular pleasure in working with his clients to fully understand their life goals, so he can help them create an appropriate financial life plan. Many clients, and their multigenerational families, have trusted his financial guidance for years.

Highly distinguished financial planning professional

Harv is a Paladin Five Star Advisor, one of fewer than 500 financial advisors in the world recognized with this distinction. He is also a member of the Financial Planning Association® (FPA®), the Nazrudin Project (Best Financial Planners Affinity Group) and the New Hampshire Estate Planning Council.

Harv’s expertise and ethics are highly respected in the financial planning industry, as evidenced by his tenure on the national Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Disciplinary and Ethics Commission, the “Supreme Court” for over 55,000 CFP® professionals. For 2008, he serves as co-chair of this commission. He is also an Accredited Investment Fiduciary Analyst™ (AIFA®), one of fewer than 400 financial advisors worldwide with this distinction, a Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) and a Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU).

International focus and academic excellence

Prior to founding Ames Planning Associates, after three academic years in the tri-university (Boston University, MIT and Harvard) African Studies Program, he earned his BA degree in international affairs, with minors in economics and chemistry, from the University of Colorado in Boulder. He began his career as an international development Foreign Service Officer in ViêtNam, heading up a 35-man district team in northern South ViêtNam.

He was then assigned to the continent of Africa, where he had responsibility for the relief efforts of the Sahelian Drought (1974-1975) and then for eight country programs (Mali, Guinea, Kenya, Uganda, Seychelles, Comoros, Mauritius, Malagasy Republic) and the East African Regional Economic Development Service office (REDSO), based in Nairobi, Kenya. Following his return to the U.S., he earned his MBA in 1978 from the University of Colorado, with dual degree majors in finance and organizational behavior/management.

While a doctoral student at the university, he was a part-time faculty member. Subsequently, he taught marketing at the University of Northern Colorado and at the IBM Institute. From 1982 to 1987 he was a full-time faculty member at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, where he taught finance, marketing, international business and business policy. He also taught as an adjunct faculty member at Simmons and Merrimack Colleges in Massachusetts and at Rivier and New England Colleges in New Hampshire.

Following his teaching career, during which he received two teaching excellence awards, he launched Ames Planning Associates, which has become one of the most respected fee-only financial planning and investment management firms in the country.

Dedicated community servant

Now empty-nesters, Harv and his wife, Doreen, live in Hancock, NH, with occasional visits from their three daughters for food and laundry services. He has been an active community member, serving on the town’s Board of Adjustment, Selectmen’s Executive Advisory Board and as chairman of the Community Planning Forum Steering Committee. He has also served as president of the Antrim-Bennington Lion’s Club, as treasurer of the Peterborough Rotary Club, and on the board of the Monadnock Community Day Care Center and MAPS (Monadnock Area Pastoral Services).

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