Allied Investment Advisors

Allied Investment Advisors

Bart Aby and Gary Lucas launched Allied Investment Advisors in 2009 from Billings, Montana, amid the global financial crisis. Their thesis was simple: a transparent, fee-only advisory that rejected commissions and hidden charges. The firm serves retirees, pre-retirees, business owners, foundations, and 401(k) plan sponsors concentrated in Montana and Wyoming. Aby brought over 18 years of industry experience from Stockman Asset Management, while Lucas arrived with more than 30 years, including a senior portfolio manager role at D.A. Davidson & Co. and a tenure as CEO of Stockman Asset Management. Allied’s investment strategy emphasizes concentration and fundamental research over short-term market timing. The team constructs portfolios that blend individual equities, fixed-income instruments, and real-asset exposure, guided by a "safe bucket" framework intended to segregate near-term liquidity needs from longer-duration capital. Chief Investment Officer Eric Vermulm, who joined in February 2018, directs the security-selection process — a role he previously held at Stack Financial Management and Stockman Wealth Management. In 2025, the firm added Brady Goyn as a Portfolio Manager, recruiting him from the University of Wyoming Foundation where he served as an Investment Analyst. The firm explicitly avoids the wide-net approach of large wirehouses, instead managing customized allocations for a small roster of local clients. Allied reports 18 professionals across its Billings headquarters and a satellite office in Conrad, Montana. The firm does not publish assets under management. Managing Director Ty Elkin, who joined in August 2022, earned the Certified Exit Planning Advisor designation in 2025, signaling a growing focus on business-owner succession and liquidity events alongside the firm’s retirement-plan services — the latter led by Director Sarah Siderius since September 2019. Allied also maintains a distinct compliance infrastructure under Chief Compliance Officer Michele White, who arrived in February 2021 from a national bank. There are no known co-investment clubs or separate philanthropic vehicles. Allied’s structural differentiator is its physical presence in a low-density region. The firm states it travels weekly to client meetings across Montana and Wyoming, resisting a purely digital advisory posture. This high-touch, geographically anchored model serves a client base for whom proximity and face-to-face trust remain non-negotiable edges over remote asset managers. The expense of that model is also its barrier to entry, creating a local competitive advantage that remote robo-advisors cannot easily replicate.