Video Transcription:

Hello, and welcome to the Retirement Pointe podcast season one, episode four. My name is Kathryn Harbour and I'll be your host today. Today with us, we have Mr. Don Bernardo. Welcome.  Thank you. We're glad to have you.  So I read just a little bit about your background, Mr Bernardo. And I noticed that, of course, you went to Brown and you majored in American literature and  so curious to know how you went from majoring in American literature to a state planning for high net worth individuals.

 

Just tell us a little bit about that journey. I went to law school at Buffalo University after Brown, and At in law school, I particularly liked the estate planning work courses, but did not want to live in a big city. So I moved into the estate planning work in a bank trust department in Buffalo where I lived twice.

 

You really have to be stupid to live in Buffalo twice. 

 

And and eventually ended up with, I was in several other trust departments, but eventually ended up establishing one at the, Largest credit union in the country. No other credit union had a trust department at the time and the way I structured it they now have about 17 affiliated credit unions that have trust operations.

 

I specialized in estate planning for high net worth individuals. I've lectured all over the country on the subject. I have written about 20.  Topical pieces or white papers called the hot topics in estate planning. And I'm a specialist in one particular area  called living trust, where I have established estate plans for very famous people like Celine Dion and the Buffalo Bills that went to the two or four times in a row and lost four times in a row.

 

And so that was the transition. I worked for, I clerked for the Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, which is the highest judgeship in New York. And he's the guy who told me, look, if you want to go to a law school, you should get a very  firm foundation in writing skills because you'll end up having to write briefs and so on.

 

And So I got to Brown and then I told you the story about how I got to Brown from Brown into estate planning. Okay. Okay. And I guess I don't know enough about Buffalo for someone to say living there twice was probably not the best decision. So what does that mean?

 

For those of us who aren't from New York.  200 inches of snow a year. Wow. And just incredible amounts of snow to the point where sometimes you'll see a picture of a car that looks like a lump in the snow. In 76, when I lived there the second time, my. House looked like a lump. Oh my gosh. And you couldn't open the front door.

 

It took us about a week to dig out of the driveway. That's how bad it was on the throughway. They were helicopter lifting people off of their car sites because they were running out of gas. It was a. 100 year blizzard is what it was. So  you've got to be a masochist to live  there two times.

 

So you don't miss the snow in North Carolina, do you? Not at all. Right. That just that sounds like such an interesting career. What is and especially writing papers and lecturing and educating people about really doing the right thing for their families, right? So  what, now when you were lecturing and you wrote papers, were those all geared towards high net worth individuals or Did you have any sort of interaction, with the rest of us? 

 

No, the estate planning, it wasn't just high net worth individuals. Okay.  All just you type people. But no the estate planning work that I did for the high net worth people was the 20 hot topics that I wrote the white papers about were all within the subject matter, the general subject matter of estate planning and various different topics about estate planning, specialized topics, including that one that I mentioned, the living trust and the high net worth people, for example Jim Kelly of the Buffalo Bills, who was the quarterback that took them to the four Super Bowls.

 

He had a net worth of about, 20 million and growing. And so I saved him about 5 million in estate taxes and that's money that went to the family instead of going to the government who spends it. Wisely.  So  if you were to, let's, for the listeners out there give one or two pieces of advice for people who were embarking on this estate planning or thinking about it what would you wanna leave them with?

 

Most people will go to an attorney when they think about estate planning, and the attorney  will encourage them to have a will. To tra to transfer assets at death. But that's probably the worst way to do it. And the attorney has some enlightened self-interest in recommending a will because if you die with a will the will has to go through probate.

 

And probate isn't a very expensive and time consuming process. And the attorney at $250 an hour or whatever he or she charges. Would prefer to do it that way. My recommendation is to use this vehicle called a living trust that you transfer all your assets to during your lifetime. Just retitle them.

 

For example, a brokerage account that may be titled in your name maybe and your wife's name, you just retitled into the name of this joint. Revocable living trust. You have control of the assets during your lifetime, but you typically would hire a bank trust department to manage those investments.

 

And you can say yes or no to whatever the trust department proposes. And you don't even have to use a trust department. You can be the trustee of the trust yourself. So you have as much control over the investments as you would have if they were. Title in your own name, but the advantage is that if later in life you're no longer able to manage the assets, the trustee can do that.

 

If you have named yourself as trustee, you'd be naming a successor trustee who may be either your wife or a child, and they can manage the assets. And by that, Manage the investments. And if it becomes necessary, pay your bills and all of that kind of thing. And then at your death, the trust continues for the surviving spouse.

 

If she's living, if not then it gets distributed to the kids. No probate. Okay. It's probably in Jim Kelly's case, it probably saved him. Just in probate fees, about 5 percent of his 20 million, saved him a lot of money  in bucks. And yeah, a million bucks,  then in addition, and in his case, and it's going to change under Biden, I believe back to where it used to be, there's something called.

 

a marital deduction for a million dollars at that time. And that means that you could set up a trust that was for the  first spouse and  all of the other assets would not be taxed. And then at the death of the second spouse, they would be taxed. Now the  exemption is 10 million. So most people don't have to worry about tax, but I think it's going to go back to a million.

 

Federal taxes, 55 percent  and the state taxes, 16 percent in North Carolina. Here you've worked all your  paid income taxes when you made it, you paid sales taxes when you bought something,  get it from you that way. They'll get it from you when you die, unless you do planning. Okay. So it sounds to me like what you're saying is it doesn't, this, I think for me, the impression has always been, gee, you do a trust.

 

If you. are wealthy, right? But it sounds to me like what you're saying is it's really a vehicle that's available to anyone. That's correct. And that's what I, that's what I recommend. And then some of those hot topics papers go into much more extensive review of, for example, how the estate tax savings works and how the.

 

Trustee can manage the investments and pay your bills for you if it becomes necessary. If you're not able to manage your own affairs it also takes a big burden off the surviving spouse who may not be all that familiar with even balancing a checkbook, let alone managing investments. Sure. It it's a good device.

 

So where do, where can listeners find. Is there a place where listeners can find your papers on hot topics? No, there's not. They can email me and I'll be happy to share them. But the and the email address is on the website that I'll talk about a little bit later. Okay. But the typically I would use them and distribute those that applied to a particular individual and  Because they're very, this is not like reading a novel.

 

This is pretty technical stuff. Okay. Makes sense. So fast forwarding a little bit. So that's that. It sounds like a very gosh,  rewarding career, right? Helping people with that. It sounds like you've helped a lot of individuals over over your career. How did you  know when it was time to think about retiring?

 

Actually, it's interesting. I went on to a second career for a brief period of time owned a company that drilled and operated natural gas wells for about five  natural gas prices cratered.  And so I went back to the trust business. This was my second tour in Buffalo and decided that with the weather and everything I needed to move South.

 

So I moved to the outer banks of North Carolina and have enjoyed the weather ever since. I did a little bit of,  I had gone there many times, but I did a little bit of research and I found that. I lived in Florida for a while and the heat down there, it's averages, the temperature is 80 degrees up north where I lived, it was 40 degrees and in the Outer Banks it was 60.

 

So I settled on the median.  So when you first moved to Roanoke Island, you continued working in estate planning or is that when you retired? My wife had Alzheimer's and So I had a lot of time on my hands and I set up something called the Estate Planning Council the Estate Planning Center of the Outer Banks.

 

And I advised people there on how to use this living trust. And in that case, there are some oceanfront properties that are 25, 30 million in value. So just those oceanfront properties. properties retitled into the name of the trust  created a lot of savings. And these folks that had 25 million properties had tons of other assets.

 

So it, it worked quite well while I was working on another project. Sure. Okay. Was the other project, your book, okay. And tell us a little bit about that. So for you, Backing up. So getting a degree in American literature, did your desire to write a book start way back when or at some other point during your life?

 

I started way back when, but I was never able to apply the degree. directly to what I enjoyed doing, which was writing and certainly not to fiction.  And this is a fiction novel. It's a historic novel but it's it's fiction. And it was inspired by a play that has been running on the Outer Banks for 87 years,  87 years and about 4.

 

5 million people have seen the play.  And it's all about Queen Elizabeth's effort to establish the first English colony in America.  But it ends the historical part of the story ends with the colonists being chased out of Roanoke. And I lived about a mile away from  the site where this all happened and where the play is performed.

 

And To Parts Unknown that's what my novel does. It solves that oldest American mystery. And it's a fun book. It ends with a it ends with a love story about Virginia Dare. Who was the daughter of the  grandfather who, um, was one of the colonists who were lost.  The story basically runs that 117 colonists were sent here within three years, they all disappeared without a trace.

 

And so my. My book explains  that and I've got, I've got some notes. I don't know if you want to get into any of the detail, but it's a fun story. I certainly don't want to spoil it for listeners because I do want that. I do want them to be able to order your book if, and I would certainly like to do I didn't have enough time to do that before we talked today, but I would definitely and I want to visit Roanoke Island after hearing about it and the play and it just seems beautiful and interesting and all of all of the above.  It is a,  it's a beautiful place. It's about a mile and a half from the Nags Head beaches.

 

And the play is absolutely amazing. It's an outdoor amphitheater that seats 2000 people under the stars at 8 p. m. for 84 nights in the summer. It plays with 80 professional actors and 40 stage folks. And it's on the largest stage outside of New York City. And it's part musical, symphonic musical and part play.

 

The costumes are breathtaking, particularly those that relate to Queen Elizabeth. And Let me talk just a little bit about the play.  The book, follows a big part of the play. 

 

There was a plague, believe it or not, in London,  that had a 75 percent mortality rate. How does that sound?  Vaguely familiar. But the Spanish were also attacking all of the English ships, the mercantile ships. And so she decided that literally to save enough English  people, the thing had gone on for six years.

 

To save enough English people and also to establish military bases in the new world, she would set up seven colonies and Roanoke was the first. But as the play indicates, the the colonists came over. Built a bunch of buildings and a fort. There were two Indians. One was a good Indian by the name of Manteo.

 

And there is a city on Roanoke Island called Manteo and he helped the colonists. There was a bad Indian called Wanchese and there's a town there as well named after him. And he, ironically, correctly,  was concerned that the English would take over the country. And so he fought and tried and vowed to kill all of them.

 

And when they, uh, when his siege  started a  famine in the colony. He, the captain left to go back to England to provision up. He had to stay there because of the Spanish war. For three years, the Queen needed his ship and they beat the Spanish Armada and was then allowed to come back to this country.

 

When he got here, the colonists were all gone.  It's at the time that they depart, which is about six months after they got there Manteo saved them, took them to Hatteras, where the famous lighthouse is, and that was his home village. And and then the colonists integrated into the society.

 

There were only 22 of them left. And then there's a love story about how Virginia Dare, by the time she reached 18, falls in love with Manteo's son, the medicine man falls in love with her as well he puts a spell on her, turns her into a snow white doe, and the rest of the stories about Manteo's efforts to.

 

Restore her to her human form. And I'll leave it at that because that's where a lot of it comes in. Oh, okay. Wow. So what you've shared already sounds fun. , there's a lot more. Okay. So tell listeners then, where, story that you just told, where does your the fiction start as far as we know?

 

So wait I know in 1590, right? Wasn't it 1590 that the gentlemen returned and they were gone? That's correct. Okay. Yeah, it starts. There's a, I would say it's about 80 percent historical fact that I did a lot of research on this and about 20 percent fiction  and it starts with a fiction of a University of North Carolina professor who is the 8th generation of the ship's carpenter on the ship that came over from  London. 

 

And his exploits in London before he came  that were driven by the fact that his  father had a love affair with the Queen's  number one handmaiden and they were both killed and he was expelled from court. And all of the efforts that he had to make to try to get to America Sir Walter Raleigh commissioned a ship and he came over on that so that's all fiction but then we pick up with the fact and the fact is.

 

essentially the same as the story at the, of the play. And then we go back to fiction.  Manteo rescues the colonists and eventually the love story with Virginia Dare, who was the granddaughter of the captain who had to go back. So Manteo, Rescuing the remaining colonists. That part is fiction.

 

It takes them to Hatteras. Okay, that's fiction. Okay. It solves that the oldest American mystery. It is the oldest American.  And the play has, was written by a UNC professor. and has run for 87 years to audiences of four and a half million people. And I joke in the promotion material, can you imagine a Broadway producer who wouldn't give up a firstborn for a play that ran for 87 years and played to four and a half million people?

 

Yeah. It's astonishing. Really that's amazing. I'm, I look forward to seeing it. Didn't even know it existed. I'm glad to know now  because I get to talk to you today. Oh, okay. Okay.  That's your book. Yeah.  Okay. Fantastic. Okay. The legend of the snow white doe. Okay. And you're going to tell, do you want to tell us, why don't you tell us now how we can order your book?

 

You can go to the website, which is the best way, not only to find out more information about the book but it can be ordered at the 22 retailers on the outer banks, if you happen to be going there who have sold 4, 000 copies already.  Pretty good start but you can also order it online by going to a website that's called TheLostColonistsFound. 

 

com. And S is important. TheLostColonistsFound.  com.  Okay. The Lost Colonists with an S on the end.  Found. com. The Lost Colonists. Found. com. A book is a quick read. It's about an hour and a half read. I designed it for beach goers who wanted to read it on the beach or at night or on a rainy day. And interestingly, One of the readers one of the places that it sold very well was at some of the smaller hotels who purchased it to give to as complimentary gift to  their guests.

 

And one of the folks who read it was Ron Howard. And He was at a wine shop that I go to quite often, visiting Andy Griffith's widow, that's where Andy lived, and he got his start in the play, by the way, for the first seven years, he played Sir Walter Raleigh but he, he and his wife go there every week.

 

Two or three years to visit with her, and I came into a wine shop that was carrying the book and sat down to have a glass of wine. I was there. I was going to say something to him, but I didn't want to bother him because I knew he was on vacation.  But the next morning, I went to resupply  one of the bed and breakfasts and it turns out that he was staying there and they came down the stairs and she is holding my book.

 

Oh, wow. At that point, I couldn't resist and I said, Mr. Howard I wrote that, I said, and I'm sure every author believes that his book is a movie, but I think this one really is. And his wife interrupted, she said, Ron, I read the whole book last night and I think it's a movie. Wow. I about fell over exchanged business cards with.

 

He, I have his framed. I don't think mine is framed. He he wrote the name of producer that he wanted me to work with. And we've been working on and off for about a year. And I get the impression that, this guy is one of these guys who  doesn't like to be told from the top down what to do.

 

He wants it to be his idea, but you never know. I tell everybody. that I talked to, particularly the women to buy your ballgown for the Oscars. Now,  inflation will drive the costs up by the time it wins the Oscar. That's, it's only, you've only been having a conversation with a year with him, right?

 

I think that things move a lot more slowly and take a long time in Hollywood, right? So I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being a movie. I will be on the lookout as well. The listeners, I'm sure. Yeah, read the book and I think you'll see why it's a movie. It's only about four or five sets and and then it's, this business of solving the oldest American mystery I think is the hook. 

 

Agreed. So how long did it take you to write the book?  Four years. Four years. Okay. Sounds like you might have been taking care of your wife at the same time. I was and I got to the business, I self published the book and I got into that business shortly after she passed and and that was a one year process, you have no idea, now I have a great respect for why people use publishers I am writing a children's book about it.

 

So how far along are you in the process of writing your children's book? Morgan's book is almost finished I just have to put a few touches on it. It's not easy to reduce. See, the thing about this book is that, for example, the Dare County School District, which, Dare County is Virginia Dare encompasses all of the Outer Banks, and I'm working with the school district to try to get that into the school system because it's probably maybe next to the Wright brothers who did the first flight there.

 

It's probably the most important historical event that occurred out there. I'm also in touch with the state education department, because once again, this is perhaps the most important event that occurred in all of North Carolina. And so it's something that the school. The high school and, middle school kids should know about.

 

It's a short read and it's very inexpensive. So it would be  worth having them do it. And I'm talking with PBS about doing an interview. But the children's book, it's hard to take this subject matter down to a children's level. So I start in a land, long ago far away.

 

, et cetera.  And do you have illustrators that you work with or an illustrator?  Yeah, I have the book has within it tons of beautiful pictures. Oh, okay. And photos and paintings. And I'd say there are about 25 pictures in it that follow the text. Okay.  So it tells the pictures alone, tell the story  and these are pictures someone drew or their photographs and pictures that Captain White, who was the  captain of the Elizabeth and 1587. 

 

That was the name of the ship. He was also an artist and a cartographer and the queen asked him for periodic reports through the paintings that he did. Wow. About four or five of his paintings in the book. Okay. And will those,  yeah, and will those make it into the children's book also then? 

 

Yes. In fact, the children's book will have even more pictures than the novel does because the kids can relate better to, to the pictures. So it sounds to me like Mr. Bernardo, that you really haven't retired.  I'm having fun. It keeps me busy. I did, move from the Outer Banks to Preston Point, which.

 

As an independent living facility,  Morrisville, North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh.  And we came here to be with my partner's daughter after she fell and broke her femur.  So  that's why we're here. And if you'd I'd be happy to talk a little bit about my experience here at Preston Point.

 

Sure. Yeah. Let's hear that. How long have you been there? We've been here for a year. Okay.  And we went to a lot of places to, to look but starting with the fact that Preston Point is family owned many of the other places that we looked at were owned by big corporations, and here if something needs to be done, it's just a telephone call away.

 

And the responsiveness has been amazing. It starts with, you excellent food. The chef is is truly unbelievable. The way it's structured is that we eat two meals a day. And you can do that all day long if you want breakfast at 7 o'clock at night, you can do that. Tables are waited on. 

 

You don't have any dishes or pots and pans to wash. You don't have any shopping to do. You would tell people that it's the first time in my life that I haven't had to worry about how much electricity and how much gas to use, because there's a, there's an all encompassing.  Fee.  We've got an activities director who was amazing.

 

She has an incredible  number of activities for us. And the staff generally is amazing because they will pitch in to help other people on the staff. For example, every, two times a week, we have a.  A  happy hour and all hands, including the executive director, come up to our theater to help serve people.

 

I've seen the executive director bussing tables and the.  room. So the staff is,  also included right up to changing of light bulbs. We have a nurse, which I really didn't think much of when we were interviewing places, but the other places don't have a nurse and this is full time and it's amazing how much she does and how much she can do.

 

Helps the residents. We've got about  140 residents here, probably a quarter of whom live in a two bedroom suite and the rest in one bedroom suites and facilities are very nice there. Cleaned every two weeks. And the cleaning crew is just incredible. I, all I can say is that the entire staff does a wonderful job here.

 

And for living there a year and singing its praises. That's, that says something because. Within 12 months, it's gee, the beginning ooey gooey feelings about a place would maybe have worn off, right? But you've been there a year and you're still, it sounds like very happy and really enjoying it there.

 

And and then singing everyone's praises and the facility as well. So that speaks volumes. It's true and we missed the Outer Banks. I'm not going to lie about that,  but  this is if we had to choose a facility here in the Raleigh metropolitan area, this one would be the choice even after having been here a year.

 

And I have to ask, how is your your partner's healing process? Is she good to go? Yep, she's fine. And it's been, nice for her to have her daughter here and she has fun with her daughter while I'm writing children's books. Are there any grandkids? I have twin grandsons who are 30 now.

 

Wow.  They live up in in Chagrin Falls near Cleveland, but three grand, grandchildren who live in the Raleigh area. Oh, okay. Nice. So you, your twins are, they both live in Chagrin Falls? Yes, they do. Okay. Okay. They stayed close to each other. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Mr. Bernardo, it's been a pleasure talking with you today and learning about your background. 

 

Gosh, everything from Buffalo to estate planning to writing a novel and Roanoke Island. It's been really a pleasure.  So thank you so much for joining us today. You're welcome. I've I've enjoyed it as well. Okay. Listeners, go to the website, order the book. Will you show us the cover of the book again?

 

Yes. And again, the website is The Lost Colonists Found.  com. The  legend of the snow white doe. This is the second edition  and this is the first edition. Okay.  First edition is all gone. And I tell people to hang on to it because one day it'll be worth a small fortune.  I have no doubt. Yeah, that's right.

 

 

Okay. Thank you again. And have a great rest of your day. Same to you.