David Stearns

David P. Stearns, Founder and President of Stearns Retirement Group in Watkinsville, Georgia, has a passion for working with retirees and soon-to-be retirees, helping them address individual financial concerns. His approach to freedom and stability in retirement are both refreshing and realistic. He understands the anxieties that many are facing when they consider preserving and distributing their retirement funds. Dave helps take the guesswork out of the financial picture and provides real numbers with real solutions to help secure funds for the long-term. Often the greatest fear for those in retirement is outliving one’s hard-earned funds, but Dave uses his experience, training, and gifts to help prepare and coordinate all the variables in your retirement so that your funds will outlive you. Stearns Retirement Group offers the following services: Retirement Planning, Investment Management, 401(k) and IRA Rollovers and Conversions, Life Insurance and Long-Term Care, Tax Planning, and Estate and Legacy Planning.

Dave Stearns was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, and earned a B.S. from the School of Technology at Purdue University. As a result of meaningful changes in his life while at Purdue, he subsequently served four years in campus ministry at the University of Georgia in Athens. Upon completion of his campus ministry work, he entered the financial services industry in 1992 as an agent with the Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company. In 1998, Dave began to grasp the financial challenges many retirees face as they approach retirement. For this reason, Dave left Farm Bureau in 1999 with the desire to dedicate his career to serving the ever-growing retirement market. He then went into Long-Term Preferred Care and then founded The Stearns Agency, which ultimately became Stearns Retirement Group in 2015.

Dave is a member of The National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors and a Certified Long-Term Care (CLTC) specialist. He is a member of the Million Dollar Round Table. Emerging as an expert in the long-term care industry, Dave has had the privilege of implementing long-term care insurance programs for The American Legion, The Good Sam Club, Truett- McConnell College, The University of Georgia Alumni association, and many other organizations. As a result, he is a sought-after training specialist in this industry. Additionally, Dave hosts a weekly radio show and podcast, The Retirement Income Show with Dave Stearns. Each week he discusses topics on the show that can help listeners achieve a more reliable retirement outcome than most traditional stock market-based plans offer.

You will find that Dave’s combined experiences as a former interim pastor and campus minister, as well as his extensive background in financial services, make him a gifted communicator, a warm educator, and a compassionate professional ready to serve his clients with humility and purpose. Married for thirty-four years, Dave and Shelley Stearns have seven children and reside just outside of Athens in Watkinsville, Georgia.