Johnathon Thomas
Financial planning works better when someone is paying attention to the whole picture.
Johnathon helps clients bring the different parts of their financial lives together, connecting retirement, investments, estate and legacy considerations, insurance, and other important financial decisions into a more coordinated plan.
Financial experience. Business perspective. A return to advice.
Johnathon's path to wealth management has not been a straight line, and that perspective shapes the way he works with clients today.
He began his career in financial services, working with clients and gaining firsthand experience with the decisions families face as they save, invest, and plan for the future.
He later spent years in business leadership and operations, where planning meant more than identifying a goal. It meant organizing competing priorities, making decisions with incomplete information, coordinating people and resources, and following through.
Returning to financial advice brought those experiences together. Today, Johnathon approaches wealth management with an emphasis on understanding the full financial picture, identifying what needs attention, and helping clients move from planning to action.
Financial Services
An early career working with clients, investments, and the financial decisions that shape long-term plans.
Business Leadership
Years spent leading businesses and operations strengthened a practical approach to priorities, coordination, and execution.
Wealth Management
Bringing those experiences together to help clients connect financial decisions and keep their planning moving forward.
A financial plan can identify what should happen. Good coordination helps make sure the pieces actually come together.
Start with the whole picture. Then figure out what needs attention.
Financial decisions rarely happen in isolation. A retirement decision can affect taxes. An investment decision can affect an estate plan. A change at work can affect insurance, cash flow, and long-term goals.
Johnathon's approach is to understand those connections first, then help clients decide what deserves attention now and what can wait.
See the full financial picture.
Begin with what matters to you, what you own, what you owe, where income comes from, what may be changing, and the decisions already on the horizon.
Understand how the pieces affect each other.
Look beyond individual accounts and consider how retirement, investments, taxes, insurance, estate considerations, and other decisions may interact.
Focus on what needs attention next.
Not everything needs to happen at once. Identify the decisions that matter most, organize the next steps, and create a clearer path forward.
Keep the planning moving forward.
Help coordinate the work, revisit decisions as life changes, and keep important financial items from becoming disconnected or forgotten over time.
The goal is not to make every financial decision at once. It's to know what matters, what connects, and what comes next.
Different decisions. One financial life.
Clients rarely come in with just one financial question. Retirement, investments, family, taxes, estate considerations, and changes in life often overlap.
Johnathon works with clients to understand those connections and help bring the right pieces of the financial picture into the conversation.
Turning retirement resources into a coordinated plan.
Bringing together retirement accounts, pensions, Social Security, investments, spending needs, healthcare considerations, and other resources to help clients prepare for the transition into retirement and the years that follow.
Helping the pieces work together.
Looking across accounts, goals, insurance, taxes, estate considerations, cash flow, and other financial priorities so decisions are considered as part of a broader financial picture.
Investing with the plan in mind.
Connecting investment strategy to the purpose of the money, the client's time horizon, risk tolerance, income needs, and the other financial decisions the portfolio is intended to support.
Connecting today's planning with what comes next.
Helping clients review beneficiaries, account ownership, estate documents, family priorities, and legacy goals while coordinating with attorneys and other professionals when legal guidance or document preparation is needed.
Financial guidance when life changes.
Helping organize the financial decisions that can follow retirement, the loss of a spouse, an inheritance, a career change, the sale of a business, or another significant transition.
Keeping your financial team connected.
Working alongside CPAs, estate attorneys, insurance professionals, and other members of a client's professional team when financial decisions cross into tax, legal, insurance, or other specialized areas.
The value is not simply having more financial information. It's understanding how the decisions fit together.
Your PERS benefit is important. The planning is understanding everything around it.
A pension can provide an important foundation for retirement, but it rarely answers every retirement question.
Johnathon has a particular interest in helping Oregon public employees and educators understand how their PERS benefit fits alongside workplace retirement plans, Social Security, personal investments, a spouse's resources, and the other decisions that shape retirement.
PERS is one piece. Retirement is the whole picture.
The work is understanding how these resources and decisions interact rather than evaluating each one separately.
The pension decision isn't the only decision.
When does retirement income need to begin, and where should that income come from?
How should PERS fit with a 403(b), 457, IRA, Social Security, and other investments?
How do a spouse's retirement resources change the household retirement picture?
What other financial decisions deserve attention before choosing a retirement date?
Your retirement benefits are part of the picture. The goal is understanding how they fit with everything else.
Paulsen Belding Wealth Management and LPL Financial are not affiliated with or endorsed by Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (PERS).
Experience shaped by more than one perspective.
Johnathon's professional background spans financial services, business leadership, and operations. Those experiences influence the way he approaches financial advice today.
At Paulsen Belding Wealth Management, he serves as a Financial Advisor & Director of Wealth Management, working with clients while also helping strengthen the planning and service experience across the firm.
An early foundation in financial advice.
Johnathon began his professional career in financial services, working with clients and developing experience around investments, financial planning, and the long-term decisions families face.
Years spent leading and building.
His career later expanded into business leadership and operations, with responsibility for managing people, priorities, systems, growth, and the day-to-day work required to turn plans into results.
Bringing both perspectives back to wealth management.
Today, Johnathon combines his financial-services background with his experience in business and operations to help clients organize complex financial decisions, coordinate the moving pieces, and follow through on the work that planning creates.
Director of Wealth Management
Different experiences can change the way you see a problem. For Johnathon, they changed the way he approaches advice.
Curious by nature. Practical by experience.
Good planning starts with understanding what actually matters to the person sitting across the table.
Johnathon's connection to Oregon extends well beyond his work at Paulsen Belding Wealth Management.
A University of Oregon alumnus, his professional life has included financial services, business leadership, and operations. Across those experiences, one theme has remained consistent: an interest in understanding how things work and finding better ways to bring the pieces together.
That same curiosity carries into his work with clients. Johnathon enjoys asking questions, working through complicated situations, and helping turn a collection of financial details into something that feels more organized and understandable.
For him, wealth management is ultimately personal. The numbers matter, but they only become useful when they are connected to the people, priorities, and life behind them.
Financial decisions are easier when you can see how the pieces fit together.
Whether you're preparing for retirement, navigating a change, or simply looking for a more coordinated approach to your financial life, a conversation is a good place to begin.
Start with what matters. Understand what connects. Then decide what comes next.