An Inside Look at Seven Family-Owned BusinessesAn Inside Look at Seven Family-Owned Businesses

Patricia M. Soldano has spent over 25 years managing family offices, providing full service, integrated family office services to many families. She developed Cymric Family Office Services into a multi-family office in 1996, and in January of 2009 Cymric became part of GenSpring Family Offices, which serves many of the world’s wealthiest families and advises on over $16 billion of assets. Pat Soldano is now the Managing Director of Client Service for the firm’s Western Region.

Ms. Soldano received her MBA from Claremont Graduate School and her BA in Business Administration from California State University, Fullerton. A recognized speaker on the topic of family wealth, she has been published in Trusts & Estates magazine, Private Wealth, The Washington Post, Forbes, Wealth Managermagazine, Fund Fire, Infovest, and other newspapers and periodicals. She is a regular presenter at national conferences throughout the United States, including The Investment Advisor Association, AICPA, USC Family Business Program, Family Office Exchange (FOX) Forum, Institute for Private Investors (IPI) Forum, Investment Management Institute and many others.

Ms. Soldano founded Policy and Taxation Group in 1995 to educate about the destructive effects on families, of the gift, estate and generation skipping tax. The organization encourages estate tax reform and has testified before the Ways and Means Committee for the Congress of the United States.

Ms. Soldano is a member of the Editorial Committee for High Net-worth Families for Trusts & Estates. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Paul Merage School of Business at UC/Irvine and is the current Co-Chair of its Center for Investment and Wealth Management. She is a Board member of "The Trusteeship" (International Women's Forum, Southern California), a Member of the Women's Philanthropy Fund of Orange County United Way and former Policy Committee Chair for the Alzheimer's Association of Orange County.

Dawn S. Markowitz is a legal editor at Trusts & Estates magazine. Prior to working at T&E, she was a legal editor at The National Law Journal and at the Institute for Continuing Legal Education. She was formerly a commercial litigator at Shea & Gould and Ashinoff, Ross & Korff, both in New York. She is licensed to practice law in New York.