Find Financial Advisors for Lockheed Martin Employees & Executives: Q&A Insights from the Experts

As a former Lockheed Martin employee, I’ve noticed that there are two major types of groups retiring from Lockheed Martin, those with a pension and those without a pension.

For those that were hired before Lockheed Martin froze their pension plan, I often see that the pension plan is a major aspect of their retirement income, but they don’t incorporate all the decisions about their pension into the overall retirement plan.

For example, there are many options that need to be considered when incorporating Social Security income, pension payouts and Required Minimum Distributions into their overall income plan. Proper tax planning is crucial to ensure tax efficient withdrawals.

The best way to transition your income into retirement is to ensure that you have guaranteed monthly income covering your monthly expenses. After that, it’s prudent to ensure your medical and long term care issues are covered and insured against. Finally, review opportunities to reduce your overall tax liability, and whether or not Roth conversions, Qualified Charitable Distributions or a Donor Advised Fund is appropriate.

The key for Lockheed Martin employees is to incorporate their 401(k), IRA, Pension (if they have one), tax considerations, Medical Care, Long Term Care and Estate into one comprehensive plan.

Having worked as a “Skunk” and engineer at Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs, I have a deep appreciation and understanding of the technical expertise it takes to develop the next generation of warfighter support. For many, though, “we don’t know what we don’t know” is a common theme I hear.

As an advisor, I’ve spoken to many teams at the Lockheed Martin Leadership Association and in partnership with IEEE, and the most common thing I hear from someone is “that’s a risk I hadn’t thought of before, but I need to start planning for”.

As technical experts, it’s easy to assume that we have thought of everything, accounted for error and are on the right path. But, getting a second opinion, especially if you consider yourself a “do it yourselfer” is crucial to not making missteps.

Especially if you are within the “Critical 15”, the 10 years before retirement or 5 years after retirement, you cannot afford to make a mistake. The risks and the consequences are greater and sometimes can have long lasting effects.

I start by making sure nobody leaves free money on the table. Lockheed puts 6% of your pay into your 401(k) automatically, and then matches half of the next 8% you put in yourself. So if you’re not contributing at least 8%, you’re walking past part of your paycheck.

From there, we look at what to fund first, and in what order.

The benefits at Lockheed are genuinely good. But they’re spread across a pension that’s frozen, a 401(k), an HSA, stock, and for some folks deferred comp. My job is to pull all of those onto one page so you can see how they fit together, instead of treating each one as a separate decision made at a separate time of year.

First question is always the simple one: when do you want to stop working, and what do you want that day to look like? Everything else hangs off the answer.

Then I get specific to Lockheed. When were you hired? That tells me whether you have a frozen pension or not. Are you contributing enough to get the full match? Are you using the HSA? Do you get restricted stock or any deferred comp? How much of your net worth is sitting in Lockheed stock, between the stock fund in your 401(k) and any shares you hold outright?

After that it’s the life questions. Are you married, and is your spouse’s retirement plan part of the picture? Kids or college coming up? Any thought of leaving Lockheed before retirement, or taking an early package? Health on both sides? Pension and Social Security timing depends a lot on those answers, and people don’t always volunteer them until you ask.

Underneath the Lockheed details, I’m really helping you answer four questions I think everyone should be able to answer but almost nobody can: the rate of return you actually need on your money to retire at today’s standard of living, how much you’d need to save to get there, how long you’d have to keep working on your current path, and — if nothing changes — how much you’d have to dial your lifestyle back later to keep from running out. A lot of my job is finding money you’re quietly losing, unknowingly and unnecessarily, and pointing it back toward those answers. I’ll also ask what’s keeping you up at night — aging parents, a child’s tuition, an inheritance, the pension election — because the worry list usually tells us where to start.

Two come to mind. The first is the after-tax part of the 401(k), often called the “mega backdoor Roth.” Once you’ve maxed out your regular contributions, Lockheed lets you put even more in on an after-tax basis and convert it to Roth inside the plan. For a higher earner, that can be tens of thousands of extra dollars a year growing tax-free.

The second is the HSA. People treat it like a checking account for medical bills. But if you can pay this year’s doctor visits out of pocket and leave the HSA alone, it becomes the best retirement account you own — money goes in tax-free, grows tax-free, and comes out tax-free for health costs later in life. Lockheed even chips in a contribution to get you started.

Yes, the HSA is at the top of that list, for the reasons I just gave.

Company stock is the next big conversation. Between the stock fund inside the 401(k) and, for some folks, restricted stock or the stock purchase plan, people end up with a large slice of their savings riding on one company. That’s a good problem, but it’s still a risk worth managing on purpose.

I also make sure people use the everyday benefits that quietly add up: the life and disability coverage, the legal plan, tuition help, and any matching on charitable gifts. None of these are glamorous, but they protect the plan. A solid disability policy is worth a lot more than people think on the day they actually need it.

Before you give notice, get clear on what’s vested and what isn’t. Your 401(k) money is yours, but restricted stock, certain company contributions, and any deferred comp can have vesting dates or timing rules. Leaving a few weeks early can cost you a chunk that was about to be yours. Know those dates before you set a last day.

After you leave, don’t rush to move the 401(k). You usually have a few choices — leave it, roll it to the new employer’s plan, or roll it to an IRA — and they’re not all equal, especially if you hold appreciated Lockheed stock in the plan, where a special tax treatment can apply.

Make that decision deliberately and take care of the boring stuff: health coverage with no gap, and updating beneficiaries.

The hardest part of retiring isn’t the math — it’s the switch from a steady paycheck to paying yourself. So a year or two out, we build the paycheck replacement: what comes from the pension, what from Social Security, and what we’ll pull from the 401(k) and other accounts to fill the gap.

A few decisions carry a lot of weight. How you take the pension is usually permanent, so the single-life versus survivor choice deserves real thought, especially if you’re married.

When you start Social Security can swing your lifetime income by a meaningful amount, and the order you draw from your accounts affects your tax bill for years.

I also like to do a trial run. We set the monthly “retirement paycheck” while you’re still working and live on it for a few months. It tells you whether the number is realistic before it has to be.

Plenty of people do a fine job on their own for years, and I tell them so. The question isn’t whether you’re smart enough — it’s whether the decisions in front of you are now big and hard to reverse.

The do-it-yourself approach works well during the saving years: contribute, stay diversified, don’t panic. The decisions get trickier near retirement. How to take the pension, when to claim Social Security, how to turn savings into income without overpaying taxes or running out — those are one-time choices with no do-over.

So I’d ask yourself a few things. Are you confident handling those irreversible decisions alone? Would your spouse be okay managing the money if something happened to you? Do you actually enjoy this, or does it just hang over you? If the answers point toward “I’d rather have a second set of eyes,” that’s usually the right time to bring someone in, not after a costly mistake.

The most common one is too much money tied to Lockheed itself. People love the company, they’ve watched the stock do well, and over time the stock fund in their 401(k) plus any shares they hold becomes an outsized part of their net worth. Your job and your savings shouldn’t depend on the same company. We trim that down gradually and in a tax-smart way, not all at once.

The second is confusion around the frozen pension. A lot of folks still think it’s growing. It isn’t — it stopped building years ago. So the 401(k) and the HSA have to do more of the heavy lifting, and we plan accordingly.

The third is simply complexity. Pension, 401(k), HSA, stock, maybe deferred comp — each gets handled at a different time, by a different rule, and they never get looked at together. I put them on one page so the decisions actually talk to each other.

Understand that “financial advisor” is a title, not a job description. Two people can use the exact same title — advisor, planner, wealth manager — and do completely different work. One sells a single product all day; another builds your whole retirement income plan. Your job is to figure out which one is sitting across from you.

The simplest test is to ask “how” and watch what comes back. Ask how something works, and a real planner answers in plain English, then turns it around to make it about you.

Someone who freezes, gives you a weather report about what Washington might do, or flips the question back at you hasn’t answered — that’s the tell. Listen for a process, not a product. Treat your questions as hypotheticals; you’re watching how they think, not fishing for today’s answer. Anyone who fires off a specific product recommendation in the first meeting, before they know your income, your accounts, and your family, is selling, not planning.

A handful of questions cut straight through the polish:

Walk me through how you’d turn my savings — 401(k), pension, Social Security — into a monthly paycheck, and in what order the money comes out. How do taxes factor into the plan you’d build for me? A real answer names things like required minimum distributions, the IRMAA surcharge on Medicare, and how the wrong withdrawal can make more of your Social Security taxable, not “who knows what taxes will do.”

What can you not help me with?

What are you actually licensed and registered to do?

If the market drops 30% next year, what do we actually do?

When I call, who picks up — is it you or a call center — and what happens to my plan if you retire?

Notice what’s not at the top of that list. Every article tells you to lead with “Are you a fiduciary? How do you get paid?”

Ask those, I’d want to know too, but ask them last. How someone is paid tells you about their incentives, not their skill. A fee-only fiduciary can still be lousy at retirement income, and a fiduciary can still have no idea how to manage your taxes. Don’t walk in to hire a surgeon and only check the billing department.

When you are interviewing an advisor it should go both ways. A good advisor will interview you right back — your family, your fears, what you want the money to actually do. That’s a green flag, not a red one. Think of the right planner like a primary care doctor, or a quarterback: they don’t run every play themselves, but they figure out what you need and pull in the specialists — the tax pro, the estate attorney — and keep everyone at one table so the plan holds together.

For Lockheed specifically, make sure they truly understand the frozen pension, the after-tax 401(k) strategy, and how to handle a concentrated stock position. A good first meeting ends one of three ways: a second meeting, a deeper look at your full picture, or an honest referral to someone better suited to you. The only bad ending is walking out having been sold something before anybody understood your life.

What surprises me most is how many people don’t realize their pension is frozen. They’ve pictured it growing in the background for years, and it actually stopped building back in 2020. When we sort out what’s real versus what they assumed, it changes the plan, usually for the better, because we catch it with time to adjust.

The other one is the after-tax 401(k) strategy. When I explain that a higher earner can put far more into a Roth than they thought possible, right inside the Lockheed plan, there’s often a long pause and then “why did nobody tell me this?” It’s a great moment, and a little frustrating for them, because in some cases it’s years of missed opportunity. The good news is we can usually start capturing it right away.

For executives, the deferred compensation plan is usually the biggest item we don’t talk about enough. It lets you push income and the tax on it into future years, which is powerful. But it comes with a catch most people underrate: that money is technically still the company’s until it’s paid out, so you’re taking on some company risk, and your payout elections are locked in years ahead. Those choices deserve careful thought, not a quick election during open enrollment.

Restricted stock is the other big one. It adds to an already large pile of company stock, and it creates a tax bill as it vests whether you sell or not. We plan for both.

For high earners, the after-tax 401(k) and the HSA matter even more, because the usual Roth and deduction doors are often closed to you by income. These plans are a side door that’s still open and worth walking through.

I sat down with a couple who had done everything right, saved hard, lived below their means, and assumed they’d be working five more years to feel safe. When we mapped out everything they actually had, including the after-tax 401(k) room they’d never used and a stock position bigger than they realized, it turned out they were a lot closer to retirement than they thought. The husband got quiet, then asked, “You mean we could be done sooner?”

What stuck with me is that the opportunity had been sitting there the whole time — they just didn’t have anyone pulling it all onto one page. Lockheed employees tend to be diligent savers with genuinely good benefits. Very often the win isn’t taking more risk; it’s simply seeing clearly what you already have and using it on purpose.

First, name the risk honestly. When your paycheck and a big share of your savings both depend on Lockheed, a rough stretch for the company could hit your income and your nest egg at the same time. The goal isn’t to abandon a stock you believe in — it’s to make sure one company doesn’t decide your retirement.

Then we trim with the tax bill in mind, not against it. We use the lower long-term capital gains rate by holding shares long enough, spread sales across calendar years to avoid bunching income, and lean on shares with a higher cost basis first. Gifting appreciated shares to charity, if you give anyway, is another clean way to reduce a position without writing a check to the IRS.

One Lockheed-specific point: if you hold company stock inside your 401(k), there’s a special tax treatment, net unrealized appreciation, that can let the growth be taxed at capital gains rates instead of ordinary income when you retire. It doesn’t fit everyone, but when it fits, it saves real money. It’s worth checking before you roll anything over.

One clarification first, because it matters: Lockheed’s pension is frozen. Folks hired before 2006 earned one, but it stopped building in 2020, and it’s not offered to newer employees. So for most people this is really a question about how to take a pension they’ve already earned, not one that’s still growing.

When it’s time to take it, the core choice is a monthly check for life versus, in some cases, a one-time lump sum. A lifetime check is simple and you can’t outlive it — a real comfort. A lump sum gives you control and something to leave to your kids, but then the investing and the discipline are on you.

Here’s where your other savings come in. If most of your money is already in the market through your 401(k), a steady pension check can be the stable floor that lets the rest stay invested. If you’re light on guaranteed income, leaning toward the monthly option may help you sleep at night. If you’re married, the survivor election (what your spouse keeps if you pass first) is often the most important part of the whole decision. We run your actual numbers rather than guessing.

It helps to be clear that this usually isn’t an either/or. If you have a Lockheed pension, you earned it under the old rules and it’s already frozen, so there’s nothing more to fund into it. The real decisions today live in the 401(k) and the accounts you control.

The way I frame it: your pension and Social Security are the guaranteed floor — income that shows up no matter what the market does. The 401(k), HSA, and any stock are the growth engine on top. Good planning is getting the right balance between the two, so you have enough certainty to feel safe and enough growth to stay ahead of rising costs.

Practically, that means funding the 401(k) at least enough to grab the full match, using the HSA and the after-tax Roth strategy where they fit, and then coordinating how everything pays out in retirement. The pension is the foundation; what you do in the 401(k) is what we can still actively shape, so that’s where most of our energy goes.

With restricted stock, the first thing I tell people is that it’s taxed as income the moment it vests, whether you sell or not. So the day shares vest, you’ve effectively just received a cash bonus that happens to be sitting in Lockheed stock. The honest question is: if someone handed you that bonus in cash, would you turn around and buy this much of one stock? Usually the answer is no, which points toward selling some and spreading it out.

A simple rule many clients like: sell a set portion of each vesting and reinvest it into a diversified mix, almost like a paycheck. It takes the emotion out and keeps any single year’s stock from taking over the plan.

For shares you do keep, we mind the tax, holding long enough for the lower long-term rate, and using appreciated shares for charitable giving when that fits. The aim isn’t to bet against your own company. It’s to turn a concentrated, all-eggs-in-one-basket position into a durable, diversified portfolio that can carry you through retirement.

“Frozen” sounds alarming, but your money is safe — it simply means the pension stopped growing. The amount you’d earned as of the freeze is locked in and will still be paid to you. What changed is that new years on the job and pay raises no longer add to it.

The practical takeaway is this: the pension is now a fixed piece of your retirement, not a growing one. That puts more weight on your 401(k), your HSA, and your own savings to carry you the rest of the way. The good news is those are exactly the parts we can still grow, so once people understand what ‘frozen’ really means, they usually feel relieved, and we get to work on the parts that are still in their hands.