Paying It Back

Jared Arteaga ’16, now a wealth management associate at Canterbury Consulting and a member of Concordia’s Alumni Association board of directors, came to Concordia as a transfer student when he was 19 and was raising a son as a single father. Now, in appreciation for how the University helped launch his career in finance and investing, he is leading the Alumni Fund committee, engaging with Concordia student club leaders, and directing funding for their projects.

“Concordia was a place where I could be a student and an athlete and have that experience given my situation,” Arteaga says. “I could grow in my faith, too, which was the cream on top.”

Arteaga, an Irvine native, had a son right after graduating high school and, with the help of his family, kept his dreams alive for going to college. He attended a local community college, then transferred to Concordia to run track and cross country on a scholarship. He switched from the 400 meters to 800 meters, then qualified for indoor nationals in the 1,000 meters and got eleventh place overall, just missing being named an All-American.

Athletics at Concordia built his inner man as well.

“I came in and it was rough — you’re a single dad trying to make ends meet, working, going to school, balancing everything,” he says. “It would have been easy to let my faith fall by the wayside, but I ended up growing in my faith. I came out of there much stronger.”

One reason was “great coaches who walked the talk,” he says. “Coach Bowman and now Coach Bloomfield would pray before practice and meets, and have a spiritual message,” he remembers. “They emphasized that we are a faith-first institution, and everything else comes second. Having good examples of that and seeing it come to action helped me stay in my lane and grow in my faith.”

He watched Coach Bowman in particular walk through a difficult health situation with his sons without losing hope in Christ.

“For him to continue coaching and give back to so many people was inspiring to me as a father and a man,” says Arteaga. “As a single dad, it’s easy to fall into a cycle of self-pity. In reality, the world is tougher and harder, and some people go through much greater battles than we do. It was a reality check.”

Arteaga worked summers as a lifeguard, swim team coach, CPR instructor, and summer camp employee for Premier Aquatics to earn what he needed to study business administration and management at Concordia during the academic year.

“I would make enough to get me through the year until next summer,” he says.

After graduating, he went straight into the workforce and soon took a new job at Tetra Tech, a global civil engineering firm in Irvine. He started as a financial analyst on the corporate side, working in operations and finance, checking the profitability of projects and the performance of groups in the river coastal engineering group. The company’s main client was the Corps of Engineers, and Arteaga learned a lot about federal procurements and projects, municipalities, utility companies, and everything that goes into proposals.

“I was able to grow my financial and analytic skills at Tetra,” he says. “As I felt more confident, I got really interested in the stock market and did research on my own, reading books and investing. I really enjoyed it and was ready to take the next step and work at an investment firm.”

In 2019, Canterbury Consulting, a registered investment advisory based out of Newport Beach, brought Arteaga in on the client services side where he served as a liaison between banks, brokers, and money managers on behalf of clients. Canterbury Consulting provides consulting services to tax-exempt organizations, including community foundations, educational endowments, religious organizations, arts and cultural foundations, and healthcare organizations, as well as individuals and family offices.

Before his first year was up, the company promoted him to wealth management associate, which was “a big jump,” he says. “I had to learn on the go, learn by fire. I took the challenge. Here I am five years later. The trial by fire worked. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, I came out unscathed.”

He credits great mentors at Concordia and other steps along the way. When he saw an email announcing that alumni board seats were open, Arteaga considered his own experience working with boards of directors for various companies and institutions and decided to apply.

“It was a great opportunity to give back,” he says. “I had the experience so, I sent in my application.”

He was appointed to the board and agreed to sit on the Alumni Fund committee with four others with the goal to raise awareness of the Fund and recommend student clubs and organizations to receive grants. For example, the Ka Pu’uhonua (Hawai’i Club) receives an annual grant to throw a well-received lu’au on campus. This year the Judo club was given a grant to compete in a competition in Texas, and Phi Epsilon Kappa won a grant to give campus-wide first aid and CPR training.

“Our fund is very small, and we have to be selective,” says Arteaga. “Students explain the purpose and why they are requesting funds. The Fund members ask, is it having a positive effect on the student body as a whole, and can we give additional help to make an impact or get the ball rolling? What effect will it have on campus?”

Beyond financial requests, the board encourages students to ask alumni for advice or volunteers.

“Networking,” says Arteaga. “We are there for that, too. All of this brings us closer to the community and grows our students.”

His work with the committee is a piece of his whole career, he says, which is about helping clients answer questions and achieve goals.

“I’m helping my alma mater, my campus and students who are in my position, because Concordia gave me so much opportunity,” he says. “For me in a very tough situation early on in my life, my main goal was just to get through school and get to the workforce. The blinders were on, and I just busted through it. I loved it so much I almost did a fifth year, but I had to get to work and had a son to raise who was entering Kindergarten.”

Today, that son is twelve, and Arteaga was married in 2023. He and his wife are expecting a baby boy this fall.

“Our school does a great job of supporting students and athletes, and I think this is an additional way we can do that, by assisting with clubs,” he says. “These hubs where students come together to support each other and congregate under one cause or mission — to support that and help them grow like I did in my time here helps pay it forward and pay back Concordia for what it was able to provide me. Hopefully, it will inspire future alumni to do the same. That’s the way we keep creating wise, honorable, and cultivated students, by supporting each other.”