Past and present come together in one dynamic person

Harlan M. Singer, Special Care Planner

FORT LAUDERDALE — The decades between the Vietnam war and today’s ongoing combat in Iraq make it easy to forget an earlier generation who fought for the same freedoms from tyranny for the South Vietnamese people in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Most of those young American men and women have completely different lives now. They’re adults with families and careers that blend into the everyday fabric of contemporary society. But their experiences shaped an entire generation and influence their decisions and ideologies even today.

Club 211 member Harlan Singer served in Vietnam and flew in the reserves, serving our country on active and reserve duty for 12 years. He brings the life lessons he learned during that tumultuous time to his successful business as an independent special care planner.

“When I saw my name on the deployment board for Vietnam, my heart stood still.”

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Singer started his college days at his hometown community college as a biology major. “But I always wanted to be an air traffic controller,” he said, “and the best way to do that in those days was to go into the military.”

So he walked away from the safety of campus life and joined the Air Force in 1969. “I qualified to be an air traffic controller and went to Key West for my first year,” said Singer. “I knew I wasn’t immune from going to war, but I thought my particular occupation would keep me stateside. When I saw my name on the deployment board for Vietnam, my heart stood still. What did I get myself into?” He left for Da Nang just after his 20th birthday.

Singer was an air controller directing tactical air strikes and working with search and rescue. He also served temporary duty as a lifeguard at the now-renown China Beach. He enjoyed his months watching over the troops on R&R on the beach and was responsible for 12 water rescues of U.S. personnel. “I loved my job,” said Singer. “It made me who I am today.”

After one year in Vietnam, Singer was stationed in Homestead where he completed his four years of active duty. He enrolled at Penn State to finish his degree. “One cold and blustery day at Penn State I stopped and asked myself, ‘What am I doing here? I could be soaking up the sun in South Florida,’” he recalls. He transferred to FIU, changed his major to communications, put his lifeguarding skills to work at the Fontainebleau Hotel and moved to Miami. After graduation in 1976 he joined the active Air Reserves flying aboard EC-121 aircraft for NORAD and NATO intelligence for another eight years.

Singer worked for the Marriott Corporation and married his wife, Laurie, in 1981. A few years later he started to look beyond his current position for financial security to support his growing family and the pending birth of their second daughter. He received a call from Mass Mutual, but didn’t think sales was the right direction for his future. After the third call, he decided to give insurance a chance and in 1987 became an independent financial planner for medical professionals. “I made more money in the first four months at Mass Mutual than I had in the previous year at my salaried job,” he said.

Twenty-four years later, Singer is still an agent and special care planner. In 2004 he joined the Eppy Financial Group and got involved with special needs planning. Now a successful sole practitioner, he travels statewide to assist special needs families solve their financial planning worries, but says his time in Vietnam is never far from his mind. “The feeling I get helping people through their struggle to prepare for a disabled family member is very similar to the feeling I got when I would pull a drowning person out of the water. It feels really good. I know I made a difference in their lives.”

Singer will help families with the basics or a work with them to develop a life-long financial plan. “They don’t get the information they need from medical providers,” he said.” I help parents understand their rights, walk them through the documents they need and show them how to fund for the future while maintaining government benefits. They’re so appreciative, they say, ‘I had no idea I needed this.’ You can’t put a price on that,” Singer added.

Singer says he doesn’t make cold calls, does little traditional advertising and doesn’t “sell” products. He prefers to set up educational seminars for organizations and individuals and says that’s what attracted him to Club 211.

“I educate people,” Singer explains. “It’s not luck that my business stays on my books. I build relationships and I wanted to be affiliated with this great organization and with the people who are the most knowledgeable about the special needs community. The people at 211 Broward go out of their way to help my clients. There isn’t another organization that does what the people at 211 Broward will do.”

— end —