Marcius said this recognition is not just for him but for hard-working people and his dad, for “whom this all started.”

The FPA recognized Reiter for providing financial education to the elderly, women and girls, college students, African-Americans, the military community and other diverse populations.

Reiter is a financial advisor at USAA, a financial services provider in Tampa that serves the U.S. military community, and she’s responsible for facilitating the financial securities of current members, veterans and their families.

When she was a college student, Reiter said financial advising was not on her radar; she had plans to study and work abroad. However, the start of the Iraq War deterred her and she went to work for a bank instead. She was assigned a mentor who was the director of wealth management and was introduced to wealth management through him.

Reiter said she began to like the profession, but when she expressed interest in it she was discouraged. Reiter suspects it was either because of her gender or her race at the time, because she was steered into retail banking, where she noticed there were more women and minorities.

“Back then, at 22, I could see that there weren’t women and I could see that there weren’t minorities in wealth management … and I thought maybe they are trying to protect me,” said Reiter.

Though the experience was 15 years ago, it has made her sensitive to diverse groups like women and minorities. In 2012, Reiter participated in a junior achievement program that takes professionals to at-risk schools to talk to children about finances. She said the teacher asked her to return because the children needed to see a black woman talking about the finance profession.

She recalled another event where she was a guest speaker at a local chamber of commerce and remembered seeing every person engaged in her presentation on women and finance. For Reiter, the fact that “nobody was looking at their phone” confirmed that people are craving financial education.

“Those experiences taught me that there’s a need to get out into the community and to share,” she said. “For me, it’s just truly gratifying to be able to help in that way and to truly give back in that way.”

The scholarships included complimentary registration and travel expenses for the 2018 FPA Annual Conference recently held in Chicago, along with one year of membership with the FPA.