Veteran Stewart joins Level Four Advisory Services in Florida's panhandle. Former H&R Block Financial Advisors planner Kristine Stewart has joined Plano, Texas-based NAMELevel Four Advisory Services. Working from Level Four's Crestview, Fla., office as an affiliate of Lincoln Financial Network, she will provide advice on retirement, estate and business-succession planning and insurance- and investment-product services.

Clients of Level Four receive advisory services from Level Four proper, which is an RIA; they can purchase securities through Lincoln Financial Network.

Brief return

"Kristine brings with her a wealth of knowledge and professional expertise that will undoubtedly enable us to continue to provide our clients with the highest quality service," says Level Four's president and founding partner Jake Tomes. "We look forward to her contributions to the continued success of both organizations."

By "both organizations" Tomes means Level Four and Lincoln Financial Network.

Stewart joined H&R Block Financial Advisors in 2002. A few months before she left that firm's Melbourne, Fla., office in November 2008, Minneapolis-based Ameriprise Financial bought H&R Block Financial Advisors from Kansas City, Kan.-based tax-preparation firm H&R Block.

As it happens, Stewart began her financial-service career with Ameriprise -- under its old name American Express Financial Advisors -- in the late 1980s.

In addition to Plano, Texas, and Crestview, N.Y., Level Four has offices in Hurst, Lubbock, New Braunfels, Aledo, Austin, Irving, Arlington and Dallas in Texas and in Virginia Beach, Va., Hillsborough, N.J., Hattiesburg, Mass., Lincoln, Ill., Studio City, Calif., and Tulsa, Okla.

Lincoln Financial Network is the marketing name for the retail sales and financial planning affiliates of Lincoln Financial Group. Its 7,000 or so independent brokers, insurance agents and financial planners offer planning and advisory services, retirement services, life products, annuities, investments, and trust services to affluent individuals and families. -FWR

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