For Lynda D. Turner, a career in financial services began with an unexpected change in direction. After 17 years as a business office manager, her employer moved its operations to Texas. Rather than uproot her family, Lynda accepted a voluntary buyout. When she reached out to a friend at Equitable Life Insurance to help replace the benefits she had lost, that conversation led to a new career.
She was hired in 1986 and went on to spend nearly three decades as a Registered Representative, retiring in 2013 after a successful career that included numerous performance awards and nine years as a member of Million Dollar Round Table.
Her own experience of losing workplace benefits also gave her a powerful perspective on the importance of financial protection. Life insurance, long term investing and access to financial products and services became priorities for Lynda, and she soon found purpose in helping others, including former coworkers who had also been displaced, secure their financial futures.
A year into her new career, Lynda joined NALU, now NAIFA, in 1987. At the time, Equitable strongly supported the association, and membership was considered an important part of being a professional in the industry. What began as a professional expectation quickly became a lifelong commitment.
Joining NALU was one of the best decisions Lynda made in her career. Through the association, she developed an appreciation for friendly competition, gained access to leading industry speakers and expanded her knowledge through professional development opportunities. She completed the courses required to earn her LUTCF designation in 1989 and later participated in NAIFA’s Leadership in Life Institute.
Over the years, Lynda served continuously in official roles at both the local and state levels. She became a longtime member of her state convention planning team and attended at least 22 national conventions. In 2014, she took on a new role as the full time Executive Director of NAIFA New Mexico. Today, she proudly carries the titles of Past President and Lifetime Achievement Award recipient.
Although her days as a producer are behind her, Lynda remains deeply engaged in the profession. As Executive Director, she focuses on convention planning, keeping members informed about NAIFA benefits, membership recruitment and advocacy efforts in both New Mexico and Washington, D.C.
Advocacy has been a particularly important part of Lynda’s NAIFA experience. She believes NAIFA plays a critical role in protecting the integrity of the profession and advocating for a stable environment for insurance, investments and taxation, all of which directly affect advisors and their clients. During her years as Chief Advocacy Officer for Government Relations, she helped coordinate appointments for Congressional Conferences and saw firsthand the importance of having a strong voice in Washington.
Her commitment to advocacy has also included longstanding support of NAIFA’s political action program, a strategic component of the association’s broader advocacy efforts. Lynda was recently honored for her long term commitment to NAIFA’s political action program, recognizing another important dimension of her decades of service to the association and the profession.
In New Mexico, she has also seen the impact of grassroots advocacy. NAIFA New Mexico members recently testified before the Senate Economic Development and Policy Committee in support of making financial literacy a graduation requirement for public high school students. For Lynda, advocacy is about more than protecting the profession. It is also about improving financial understanding and helping consumers and future generations make better financial decisions.
Her commitment to professional development has been equally enduring. Continuing education helped keep her compliant and informed throughout her career, and she was appointed by the State Superintendent’s Office to serve on its course approval committee for 27 years. Today, the camaraderie of NAIFA members and opportunities to continue learning remain important sources of motivation.
When asked what NAIFA has meant to her personally, Lynda points to the confidence and business savvy she gained through her involvement. She believes membership in a professional association can help advisors see beyond the day to day demands of an office, computer and phone and discover a much broader professional community.
That message is especially important to her when it comes to new advisors entering the industry. Lynda worries that young professionals may not immediately recognize the value of belonging to an association and having access to mentors, peers, education and advocacy. Her own experience with LILI, including participating as a co moderator, reinforced just how much professional growth can come from stepping outside the traditional boundaries of the workplace.
Now approaching her 40th year of NAIFA involvement, Lynda remains as passionate about the organization and the profession as she was when she joined in 1987. Her commitment has evolved from serving clients and building her own career to helping strengthen the profession and support the members she now serves.
And NAIFA has become more than a professional association in the Turner household. Lynda jokes that her husband, three children, nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren have all been “NAIFAized.”
After nearly four decades, Lynda’s story is a powerful reminder that a career in financial services can become about far more than business success. It can be about learning, serving others, advocating for the profession and building relationships that last a lifetime.