About

Matt Authier, Founder and CEO of The Financial Literacy Project.

Matt is currently a licensed mortgage loan originator with Gateway Mortgage. He also holds his license as a Certified Public Accountant, with past experience as an auditor and fund controller for a multi-million-dollar private equity group in Dallas.

Matt graduated from Texas A&M University in 2009 with a BBA in Accounting and a master’s degree in finance.

Matt is married to his high school sweetheart, Kate, and they have three boys, Anderson, Brooks, and Campbell. He grew up and graduated high school in Corsicana, TX. His family now resides in Waxahachie, TX where they are active in the community and members of First United Methodist Church. Matt has served as a Trustee for Waxahachie ISD and has helped run numerous school bond campaigns. He currently serves in the Lions Club, the Waxahachie Education Foundation, The Sims Library Board of Directors, The Ellis County Museum Board of Directors, and is a board member for The Heights of Ellis County.

In his free time, he loves coaching and watching his kids’ numerous extracurricular activities, and spending time hunting and fishing in the outdoors with his family. He is most proud of the work his wife, Kate, does every day on behalf of students and staff as a public-school principal. She is his hero.

Simply put, personal financial literacy is Matt’s passion. As a loan officer, he has seen hundreds of would-be homebuyers in his office without the proper understanding of critical financial literacy information. This experience is what initiated him to start teaching personal financial literacy inside classrooms seven years ago. He has a passion for education, even serving as a substitute teacher from time to time inside local schools. Matt has a great deal of respect for our teachers, being married to a public-school teacher and current school administrator. His goal is to provide our teachers with a simple and meaningful curriculum that empowers them to teach these crucial topics to our students.

Contact Matt directly via matt@thefinlitproject.org.

Impact Makers

Jason Bang

Executive Board Member

Jason is a Partner and Wealth Management Advisor with WWA. He also holds the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and Wealth Management Certified Professional® designation.

Jason began his career in financial planning in 2009 with Northwestern Mutual upon graduating from Texas A&M University. He specializes in working with successful individuals and business owners to create comprehensive financial plans that encompass all of their unique assets while understanding the complex relationships between them both. Directly from Jason: “I strive to manage and conquer the financial challenges that my clients and their business may face so that they can focus on life and family."

Jason is married to Whitney and they have two children. He grew up in Victoria, TX and he and his family now reside in Waxahachie, TX where they are active in the community and members of The Avenue Church.

In his free time he loves being with his family, Aggie sports, cooking, and enjoying the outdoors. Jason is an avid hunter (bowhunting especially) and grew up managing his family's trophy exotic game and whitetail hunting ranches in the Texas hill country.

As a financial planner, Jason sees first hand what good and bad financial advice can do to someone. He’s extremely passionate about equipping kids today with objective and first-hand knowledge of the most important topics that will lead them to financial success in the future. We can all work to raise children with the habits and disciplines to break the cycles of debt and poverty in our country. With all of the ‘required’ curriculum in our education systems today, it is a travesty that Financial Literacy is not included as an essential course for ALL kids to complete before graduating high school. We’re here to change that.

Marc Berger

Chief Strategist & Executive Board Member

Marc is a passionate CPA that has been helping small and medium-sized businesses navigate their tax and accounting responsibilities for more than 20 years!

Marc was a partner of McGinnis & Berger, LLP, a traditional CPA firm in Central TX for most of his early career. In 2016, Marc launched Purely Solutions, LLC a tech-enabled tax and accounting advisory firm that experienced rapid growth before being acquired by LegalZoom in late 2020. Under Marc’s leadership Purely Solutions, LLC was re-branded as LZ Tax, a subsidiary of LegalZoom, and quickly became one of the fastest growing online tax preparation offerings in the market today.

Marc is now focusing his energy and enthusiasm helping owners of rapidly scaling businesses that need assistance overcoming the obstacles of growth and scale within their businesses.

Financial Literacy is a cornerstone of passion for him and he looks forward to bringing these concepts to our youth.

Ryan Kahlden

Executive Board Member

Ryan Kahlden is a 2003 graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University having earned his Bachelors in Business Administration and Masters in Public Accountancy. Mr. Kahlden began his career in public accountancy in East Texas working on numerous tax returns (individuals, partnerships, S-Corps, C-Corps, nonprofits, and estate) while also performing construction, nonprofit, and governmental audits over the span of 10 years. After a change in scenery, Mr. Kahlden began a new career as the Chief Financial Officer of Waxahachie Independent School District. Over the last 10 years, Waxahachie ISD has grown to more than 11,000+ students and over 1,700 staff members, all supported by a more than $150+ million annual budget.

While at Stephen F. Austin, Mr. Kahlden met the love of his life, his wife Kelly, and together they have two children.

After completing college, Ryan was honored to serve on the board of directors of the methodist student ministries where he was able to meet many new students annually. One thing that stuck out was how uncomfortable many students were talking about their personal finances, and how in some cases, they didn’t know some basic information to be successful financially. Ryan assumed this was due to lack of interest until he became the Chief Financial Officer at Waxahachie ISD and learned that we really didn’t talk about personal financial literacy topics in school. It has been a goal of his to ensure that all students have a basic understanding of personal financial literacy to ensure they are well rounded when they graduate high school.

Personal Financial Literacy is meaningful to Ryan because it impacts everyone – students attending college, students starting their careers, students enrolling in the military, everyone needs personal financial literacy.

Lace Trout lives has a bachelor in Science with an Elementary Education from Texas A&M University at Commerce. Along with her bachelors degree, she is also STEM certified through the National Institute of STEM Education (NISE). Lace is in her 17th year of teaching, specifically having taught grades 3rd -5th. Writing curriculum to help teachers and teaching STEM education are her passions. Lace resides in Waxahachie, TX and has been married to her husband Robert for 14 years. Together, they have two amazing children, Ansley (12) and Luke (10).

Having a foundation in personal financial literacy from an early age is life changing, and is Lace’s passion to equip her students. It is so important that we empower our students for the knowledge they will need for their future. The number one way to ensure success is to teach financial literacy in a way that is intentional and relatable. Students will be able to leave our classrooms with the critical financial literacy skills needed to be successful, not just in their educational career, but for their entire lifetime.

Chief Curriculum Writer

Lace Trout

Curriculum Development Team

Teri Morgan

Teri lives in Waxahachie, TX and has three children who are all products of the public school system. Teri is a graduate from Stephen F. Austin if we want to add that in. She has had the privilege of being in education for twelve years, ten of those years as a classroom teacher. She has experience in grades K-2 with eight of those years teaching first grade.

Teri believes teaching personal financial literacy to our younger students is important because laying a strong foundation, starting in their elementary years, will help develop the skills necessary for our students to achieve financial success and their life goals later in life. She considers it a great honor to help lay a strong foundation for their future success!

Amy Nutt

Amy lives in Waxahachie, TX with her husband and two beautiful elementary aged children. She grew up in Austin, Texas and then attend college at The University of Texas at Arlington. She started teaching Kindergarten right out of college at the age of 21. She has taught Kindergarten-2nd grade for 17 years. The younger grades are her passion because she gets to set the foundation for her students to find their love of learning. There educational careers are like an unwritten book. Every time they experience something new, they get to add their knowledge and experiences to their story.

One of the most important things for students is to understand why they are learning what teachers are teaching. Personal financial literacy is so easy to explain the why. Students who have background knowledge in financial literacy will be able to manage their money well, make smart financial decisions with their money and ultimately live a comfortable lifestyle. Amy’s hope is that every student will get the opportunity to prepare for their future through The Financial Literacy Project!

Jennifer Gonzales

Jennifer has been an educator in Texas for 18 years. In her classroom experience, she has taught elementary students from kindergarten through 2nd grade. She earned her undergraduate degree from Dallas Baptist University and continued her education by earning her graduate degree in School Counseling from The University of Texas at Tyler. Her professional passion is working with students to build creative learning experiences to help students develop their love of learning.

Jennifer feels that teaching financial literacy beginning at a young age is important because it helps children to begin to develop the skills necessary to achieve financial success later in life, it helps them become more comfortable and wiser in their spending, saving, and budgeting, and it prepares them to be more successful community members and family leaders.

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