Local businessman writes Amazon Best Seller

Local businessmen Robert J. Whelan’s book “Every Piece Matters” is on the Amazon Best Seller List, which he said, “amazed me when I was notified it was a best seller.”

Whelan is a certified public accountant and a certified financial planner who lives and works in Poplar Bluff. The questions he was being asked by clients both locally and all across the country prompted him to write the book.

“I was able to reach out and explain different facets of the financial world,” Whelan said.

His experience as a certified public accountant helped him also weave in tax information.

“I tried not to use financial or tax lingo, but everyday common language a person can understand and take steps to impact lives,” Whelan said.

Whelan’s 40 years of experience includes both personal experience and many different speaking engagements with Harvard faculty, as well as seminars he has given and attended. All of this has helped him acquire a lot of knowledge he has been able to share with his clients.

While he “picked up a lot of knowledge,” Whelan also recounts he heard “horror stories,” which he “tried to eliminate those mistakes for people by writing the book.”

“I learned as much from my clients as from my education,” Whelan said. He said he learns from everyone in the community.

Whelan graduated from Poplar Bluff High School and served in the U.S. Army before he finished his college degree. He returned to his home of Poplar Bluff to work. He explained the community “turned out to be a good place to raise a family and conduct a business.”

Whelan was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1976.

“The Army was a fantastic experience, and I don’t regret anything about it,” he said. He draws on his own experiences “helping veterans in our community with things they didn’t know.”

He wrote the book to “pay it forward so others might benefit from it.” His book is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and at his office.

“Anybody in this community, I pass the book to,” said Whelan, adding “the purpose of the book is to help people, not to make money.”

He’s proud of his community involvement.

“I have been a member of Kiwanis for over 30 years, and I am a past president,” he said. “I am one of the founding members of Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Poplar Bluff. My son Ross was very active in the group. He never met a person he didn’t like.”

Whelan also considers the time he spends serving on the Missouri State Board of Accounting one of his biggest honors.

He credits his family and his staff with encouraging him in his business as well as writing his book.

His wife, Robin, is from Columbia, Missouri, and they have been married 35 years.

“She has been the biggest influence on my life,” Whelan said.

“Ryan, our oldest, has given me three wonderful grandchildren,” he said.

Ryan works for a highway and bridge construction company,

“Ross, my middle child, played on the 2004-2005 Class 5 Boys Basketball State Tournament,” Whelan said. “He went to China with Tyler Hansbrough. He is teaching English, and he married a local girl in China. Rachel, my daughter, has given me a grandson and is a registered nurse at Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center.”

“My staff members are very supportive of me, and I rely on them,” he said. “My staff encouraged me in my writing this book.”

Whelan explains it is “never to late to prepare for your future because if you have not been saving now, whatever you accumulate will be more than if you do nothing. Every piece matters when you are planning for the future and retirement.”

His business, Robert J. Whelan Complete Planning for Maturing Professionals, is located off Kanell Boulevard at 1111 Sterling Drive and is “my favorite location I have had,” he said.