Luke Speltz & Ashland Advisors

I grew up in Rollingstone, Minnesota. Population 597, no stop lights, and related to about half the town. I was a college track athlete in the artillery division, where I threw heavy objects for sport. There, I met my future wife Tona who shared the same interests. We've been married over 20 years and have four great kids, two spoiled dogs, and a passive-aggressive cat who tolerates us on his good days. I've been an Iowan since 2008 and have called Van Meter home since 2018. #RollDawgs!

Outside of work, you'll usually find me chasing my kids' sports schedules, getting in a morning boot camp or yoga session, or spending time outdoors by a grill or on a boat. We're members of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Urbandale and I coach the high school artillery division here in Van Meter. I like a dark roast coffee in the morning and an IPA or rye at happy hour.

If finances or accounting make your eyes glaze over, odds are I beat you to that finish line. I took one accounting class as an undergrad and immediately changed majors to avoid a second one. Ten years later with a little more business perspective, I found myself picking up where I left off, motivated to translate the jargon that put me to sleep into plain English.

Early in my career, I was a Registered Representative with a subsidiary of a large national financial firm. I enjoyed working with clients, but didn't enjoy the sales quotas and management elbows. Learning from that experience, I founded Ashland Advisors as an independent, fee-only fiduciary to offer clients objective financial & tax advice free from outside influences. 

I’ve spent the past two decades in corporate financial roles managing teams in financial modeling, pricing, forecasting, budgeting, and P&L oversight with lots of zeroes involved. I also co‑founded and sold two small businesses along the way. That mix of real‑world financial and entrepreneurial experience gives me a practical approach to managing dollars and cents and implementing simple, effective plans that deliver clarity and results.

As for the name Ashland Advisors, when I started at Auburn for my accounting degree we lived on Ashland Parkway and I liked the alliteration. The double-diamond logo is clean and simple, matches Auburn's font and color scheme, and in true financial-guy fashion I designed it myself in Excel.