President and Founder
Art Zaske oversees the entire wealth management process of the firm. Mr. Zaske is also the key investment professional in the firm, supervising all investment functions, development and execution of a broad number of portfolio strategies and supervision of their implementation into each client’s account. Mr. Zaske is well-versed in domestic equities, fixed income, real estate securities, as well as foreign equities and emerging markets. He makes the primary decisions regarding the investment direction of the firm.
Arthur Zaske was a co-founder of Zaske, Sarafa & Associates, Inc. an investment advisory firm. He served as Chairman and Chief Investment Officer. Additionally, he conducted securities research, portfolio management and was responsible for the establishment of the Firm’s investment strategy. Zaske, Sarafa & Associate's assets grew to over $700 million under management during his tenure with the firm.
Arthur Zaske was manager of the Institutional Services Group covering the State of Michigan. Here, he focused on managing fixed income securities and debt strategies for financial institutions and medium sized corporations. He also maintained a fee based investment advisory business concentrating on High Net Worth Individuals. Further, he was an instructor in Drexel’s national institutional services seminars covering asset backed securities and other derivative investments.
During the first two years of Mr. Zaske’s second tenure with Merrill Lynch, he was the administrative manager covering three offices. During this time, he developed the basic asset allocation strategy used by Arthur Zaske & Associates today.
As one of the founding partners of the Merrill Lynch Retirement Group, Mr. Zaske employed the asset allocation strategy he had built in 1979 and 1980, to manage the assets of other Merrill Lynch customers. The fee-only service rendered by this group was to provide the pattern for the wrap account product later offered by Merrill Lynch and the rest of the brokerage industry. Additionally, Mr. Zaske was the architect of a mutual fund which Merrill Lynch Asset Management successfully offered to Merrill Lynch customers
Arthur Zaske began as a futures broker with Merrill Lynch. After three years, he took a position as an Office Manager for Shearson Hayden Stone (Salomon Smith Barney), became a division director and managed a subsidiary corporation for Shearson. At Bache (now Prudential Financial), Mr. Zaske managed a local department and produced a technical market letter.