Expert reviewer
Theo Halbardier, CFP®, CIMA®, CAIA®
Founder and Private Wealth Advisor, The Financial Sciences Company
Theo reviews the guides on Retirement Made Clear. At The Financial Sciences Company, a fee-only fiduciary firm, he works with people whose finances have outgrown a simple plan: maximizing retirement income, coordinating taxes, navigating equity compensation, selling a business, and more.
- CFP®
- CIMA®
- CAIA®
Verify: CFP Board lookup · SEC adviser record (CRD 6975190)
What he does here
Every guide on this site is written by the Retirement Made Clear editorial team from primary sources: IRS revenue procedures and publications, Social Security Administration rules, CMS fact sheets, and the statutes themselves. Each guide lists those sources at the end. Theo is the expert check on top of that work. He reviews guides for accuracy, for completeness, and for whether the explanation would hold up for a real household, and he signs off on corrections.
His name is in the byline of every guide he has reviewed, with the date of his review. When a figure or rule changes, the guide is updated and checked again. How the whole process works is in our editorial standards.
What the letters after his name mean for you
- CFP®Financial planning. CFP® professionals are trained across the whole picture — cash flow, taxes, insurance, estate, and retirement — and commit to act as a fiduciary when giving financial advice.
- CIMA®Investment management. Advanced training in portfolio construction and risk management, earned through executive-education programs.
- CAIA®Alternative investments. Specialist knowledge of private equity, private credit, real assets, and hedge funds, including when they belong in a portfolio and when they do not.
Few advisors nationwide carry all three. You can confirm each one yourself: CFP Board’s Verify a CFP® Professional lookup, and his record on the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure site.
Background
Theo earned an engineering degree from Texas A&M University, and it shows in how he works: care with the details, and care in choosing the right approach before solving a problem. He trained as a financial advisor at Merrill, then spent years raising capital, working with investors of every size, from individuals to institutional pension funds. He founded The Financial Sciences Company in 2024.
About The Financial Sciences Company
Retirement Made Clear is an educational platform owned and operated by The Financial Sciences Company, LLC, a fee-only fiduciary firm specializing in bringing the investment styles institutions have historically used to individual clients. Fee-only means the firm is paid by the clients it advises and by no one else.
How this fits Retirement Made Clear
The site’s job is education: guides that explain how the rules work, with every figure cited and dated, and tools you can run on your own numbers. If you want to go further with your own situation, you can book a free 30-minute conversation. That conversation is with an advisor of The Financial Sciences Company.
More on how this site works Editorial standards Theo’s profile at thefinancialsciences.com
The Financial Sciences Company, LLC is an investment adviser registered with the State of Texas. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Our Form ADV is available at adviserinfo.sec.gov. Content on this site is educational only and is not personalized investment, tax, or legal advice.