In 1988, Tom Batterman made a decision that would define the next three decades of his career: he left a stable job at a bank-affiliated trust company to start his own independent firm. The company he founded, Vigil Asset Management Group, became the first non-bank corporate trustee organized in Wisconsin, and the first trust company not affiliated with a bank chartered in the state since the early 1900s. Batterman, now retired and living part of the year in Eagle River, Wisconsin, and part of the year in The Villages, Florida, says the decision came down to a simple concern: what would happen to his clients.
A Letter He Almost Threw Away
Before founding Vigil, Batterman worked as a trust officer at Wisconsin Valley Trust Company, a subsidiary of Central Wisconsin Bancshares. He enjoyed the work and was building strong relationships with clients across the region. Then the company was acquired by Marshall & Ilsley, a larger banking organization.
Tom Batterman remembers the timing distinctly. “I distinctly remember a letter from a recruiter,” he said. “About three days before that acquisition was announced, it came in, and I said, I’m not interested. ” I threw it in the wastebasket, and three days later, the acquisition was announced, and I’m digging around in the trash trying to find that letter.”
A Problem With How Clients Would Be Treated
What worried Batterman most was not the acquisition itself, but what it meant for the way clients would be served going forward. At the time, the average client relationship at Wisconsin Valley Trust Company was valued at roughly $175,000, and the team had been working to become more proactive in reaching out to those clients. Marshall & Ilsley, according to Batterman, set a much higher bar for personal attention, focusing outreach on accounts worth more than a million dollars.
“Unless you have an account size of over a million dollars, the only kind of service you’re gonna get is if you call us. We’re not gonna bother to call you,” Batterman said, describing the approach. “I didn’t like that, and I didn’t think that made a lot of sense.”
Rather than accept that shift, Batterman began exploring other options. He interviewed with several established trust companies but did not find the right fit. What he did find was support closer to home.Several people in the local Wausau-area business community indicated they would back an independent, community-based trust alternative if he chose to build one.
Building Vigil From the Ground Up
Batterman took that opening. He left his position, put together a prospectus, raised capital from local investors, and opened Vigil Asset Management Group in 1988. The company became the first non-bank corporate trustee organized in Wisconsin, and the first trust company not affiliated with a bank chartered in the state since the early 1900s.
Batterman has said the decision was not driven by personal ambition or a desire to run his own company for its own sake. It came from a specific concern about what happens to smaller clients when a larger institution absorbs a smaller one and shifts its priorities toward higher-value accounts. Vigil was his answer to that problem: a trust company built around the idea that client relationships should not depend on the size of the account behind them.
That same client-first thinking would continue to shape Batterman’s work for more than 30 years, eventually leading him to found Financial Fiduciaries, LLC, and to build a career centered on fee-only, conflict-free financial guidance for individuals and small mutual insurance companies across Wisconsin and, later, Florida.
