Mika McFadden

Mika McFadden joined New Course Financial as vice president in 2019. Before teaming up with Theresa Dilatush, Mika’s career in financial services included several different roles; he was a financial advisor from 1998 to 2003, an employee benefit advisor from 2000 to 2019 and he has been a life insurance advisor since 1998.

Always a believer in the importance of life insurance in protecting families, he earned many industry awards. When he was with Colonial Life, he was in the President’s Club four times, in the Leader’s Conference 10 times, and was a 15-time earner of Top New Accounts and Top New Premium award categories.

Of course, as an advocate for life insurance his entire career, he has always counseled people to have policies in place and not to put off estate planning. But his own life story ended up proving his point in dramatic fashion.

On a family ski trip to Colorado in 2020, he almost became a statistic when he literally dropped dead from a heart attack over Thanksgiving weekend. “I was actually the survivor profiled by the American Heart Association in 2023,” Mika says. “It’s not how you want to get on the cover of a magazine, but God works in mysterious ways.”

As a result of this experience, Mika has an even more powerful drive and passion to help others. “We never know how much time we have, and I always recommend from firsthand experience that you have an estate plan in place.”

Mika works with many different types of clients. “At New Course Financial, we try and help provide sound solutions for individuals, families, and business owners. I have seen over the past 25 years that people don’t know what they don’t know. There is a need for more education on topics like more efficient retirement planning, business succession planning, estate preservation and planning, just to name a few. I was fortunate to see firsthand from my grandparents what efficient retirement planning can do for someone, even when they did not have much wealth during their working years,” Mika says.

“For individuals and families, our goal is to educate people about nontraditional retirement planning strategies and help them manage retirement risks and avert problems that they didn’t even know they were going to have in retirement. When people ask what that means, we try and explain how important having reliable, tax-advantaged retirement income is. Sometimes you can even structure portfolios so that income will be tax-free.

“Many people don’t realize how much less they actually have saved in their 401(k) than they thought when we start calculating how much they will owe in income taxes on that money. It’s really important that start early and create a retirement plan that mitigates taxes,” he says.

“But that’s not all—people also need to be prepared for unexpected events not addressed by traditional financial advisors. Like the possibility of needing long-term care someday (which is extremely expensive and not covered by Medicare), or the possibility outliving their retirement portfolio or benefits, or owing far more in taxes because of misconceptions about tax obligations like required minimum distributions in retirement.”

“For business owners, our goal is to help them minimize risk, protect their assets, build tax-free retirement income, create an exit strategy, and retain quality employees. We work with strategic partners that help business owners utilize key tax strategies such as business tax credits, buy/sell agreements, deferred trusts, etc. We can also provide your family with a trust at a fraction of the cost of a typical attorney through our service. If you are a business owner, looking to purchase a business, or looking to become a franchisee, the tools we offer can be very beneficial to your bottom line,” Mika says.

Mika was born in Dequeen, Arkansas and was raised in Eastern Oklahoma and Western Arkansas. He moved a lot in childhood—six times between kindergarten and 10th grade. He attended high school in Ashdown, Arkansas, and graduated from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications and a minor in business.

In his free time, Mika devotes himself to giving back to the community. He is currently serving his second year on the church council at Central United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, his third year on the board of directors at Fayetteville Country Club, and just completed serving four years as a volunteer chair for the local “Race for the Cure” for the American Cancer Society. Mika says, “I lost my mother in 2013 after a four-year bout with cancer. And I have been involved with different fundraising and awareness events with the American Heart Association since November of 2020, when I myself suffered a massive heart attack.”

Mika has been married for 22 years to his wife, Amy. They were high school sweethearts, and in 2022, they celebrated the 30th anniversary of their first date. Mika and Amy’s three children include oldest son, Connor, 18, attending the University of Arkansas as a freshman; daughter Avery, 16, a sophomore in high school; and youngest son, Chase, 12, currently in the 6th grade. In addition to spending time with his family, Mika enjoys golf, travel, fishing and hunting.