INTEGRITY FINANCIAL - Key Persons
Alex Strawn joined Integrity Financial in 2017 as a customer service associate. Her goal is to provide the best service to our clients. Alex has taken business courses focusing on management, administration and marketing at the College of Western Idaho and has earned her Financial Paraplanner Qualified Professional™ designation from the College for Financial Planning. She is eager to learn even more about the industry and is passionate about advancing in a career that truly makes a difference in people's lives.
Outside of the office, Alex enjoys spending time with her family and friends. Baking is a stress reliever for her, and she loves to be able to bake for others in her spare time. Alex also loves the outdoors and enjoys spending time in the mountains, whether it's camping, hiking or just taking a drive to take in the beautiful views.
Annaliese Gerdes started at Integrity Financial in early 2022 as a customer service associate. She has always found the financial world to be a fun, fascinating field and aspires to one day become a financial planner. Annaliese has a Bachelor of Arts from Northwest Nazarene University and has earned her Accredited Asset Management Specialist designation from the College of Financial Planning. Annaliese is excited to continue growing her knowledge of finance as she begins her career by serving and encouraging clients as they reach their financial goals.
When she isn't at the office, Annaliese enjoys going on mini-adventures with her husband, playing board games with her friends and family, and going to the mountains to get lost in the woods.
I've always been a Daddy's girl. My dad was a farmer in southern Idaho; he worked very long hours in every season but winter. I loved spending time with him, admiring his hard work and quiet generosity.
In the winter when he wasn't so busy, Dad would turn on the news each morning and make me French toast for breakfast before I left for school. I learned from experience that I'd better be quiet when the financial news and the weather came on. For me, those mornings are a mix of the smell of maple syrup and coffee with the newscaster's voice reporting "the Dow Jones today" and the "The Commodities Report."
I overheard countless phone conversations with Dad talking about the futures markets and crop prices-especially the low wheat prices during the ‘90s. As an adult, I've come to understand why, as a farmer, he needed to know so much about finance. There are many risks you can't control when you farm: hail storms pale in comparison to the ups and downs of the stock market in terms of the farm's wellbeing. In the face of this risk, your most powerful ally is knowledge.
My mom was the traditional hardworking farm wife who made our meals, cleaned our house, AND worked on the farm. She had so much on her plate she never had time to develop an interest in finance, and still finds it overwhelming and confusing.
Mom's lucky to still have Dad to help her-and if something happens to him, she has me. But many of the people I've helped over the years weren't so fortunate; they didn't have anyone they could trust to help them understand and manage their finances.
So how did I really get into financial advising? I started my career selling insurance in 1999. Sales was never my strength-I'm not a cold-calling kind of gal-but I found the investment world challenging and interesting.
When I realized that I could use the financial knowledge I'd absorbed on the farm to help clients manage their money, it didn't take me long to make a change. By the next year, I'd shifted my focus to investment and retirement planning, and I'd found my happy place. While I treasure the chance to support people who remind me of my mom in their discomfort with finance, I'm also passionate about helping those who just aren't interested in it-they'd rather focus on family, work, and hobbies.