Iron Horse Wealth Management

Brad Wilson founded the firm and serves as its lead advisor. Public records, including the firm's regulatory filings, list Wilson as the primary decision-maker for both client portfolios and corporate strategy. The firm's compact structure suggests a single investment committee or advisor-driven process rather than a large, layered research team — a common configuration for lifestyle RIAs of this size.

Iron Horse is a fee-only registered investment advisor. It charges asset-based fees for discretionary portfolio management and hourly or fixed fees for standalone financial planning engagements. This dual model allows clients to engage the firm for one-time planning projects without committing assets, a structural feature that reduces conflicts of interest relative to commission-based practices.

The firm constructs client portfolios using direct securities — including ETFs, individual equities, bonds, and mutual funds — rather than commingled private funds. There is no public evidence that Iron Horse allocates to private equity, venture capital, or hedge fund vehicles, consistent with its concentration on liquid, transparent, low-cost investments for taxable Midwestern families.

The firm operates entirely within public-market asset classes: domestic and international equities, fixed-income, and cash equivalents. Allocations appear to follow a goals-based framework. Client portfolios are built for specific planning outcomes — retirement income, education funding, estate transfer — rather than benchmarked performance. There is no indication of direct private-company, real-asset, or alternative investment activity.

The firm serves a mix of individuals, trusts, estates, and small corporations, with a geographic concentration in Johnston, Iowa, and the Greater Des Moines metropolitan area. Publicly available data does not identify any single concentration of wealth by industry, though the economic profile of the region suggests accumulations from insurance, agriculture-adjacent businesses, and professional services.

Iron Horse operates as a commercial registered investment advisor serving multiple unrelated clients, not a single-family office. It is more accurately classified as a multi-family-office-patterned RIA: the firm provides family-office-style planning coordination and consolidated reporting for each client household, but it does so as an outsourced provider for several families and businesses.

The firm has no known co-investment program, club-deal structure, or internal partnership for direct private deals. Its regulatory disclosures and advisor profile emphasize individual securities selection and financial planning, suggesting a deliberate avoidance of illiquid or inter-client pooled structures. An allocator would not encounter Iron Horse as a capital partner in a fund or direct deal.