Dolores Dorsett

Dolores "Didi" Dorsett is a retired U.S. Navy Commander who served roughly 20 years as a Navy intelligence officer before a second career in personal finance. Her interest in financial planning traces back to her first Navy assignment, when a colleague introduced her to a fee-only planner while she was a young officer stationed in Japan; she has said she kept the one-page plan drawn up for her back then. After the Navy she spent about seven years working for a defense contractor before deciding she wanted "something different and more meaningful" and "a sense of being able to give back."

She earned her CFP® certification in 2015, studying for the exam while volunteering as a pro-bono planner at Britepaths, a nonprofit serving low-income families in the Washington, D.C. area. In 2018 she was named the runner-up for the profession's Pro Bono Award, recognized for providing focused one-on-one planning to roughly 75 people over three years. She frames her financial-planning work as an extension of her intelligence career: "I spent 20 years taking disparate pieces of information and weaving them together into a coherent story that someone could take action on."

Today she practices at Safe Harbor Financial Advisors, LLC in Occoquan, Virginia, alongside firm principal George F. Reilly (a fellow Navy veteran, attorney, and CFP® who served as the Navy's Tax Counsel). The firm is a small, fee-only, fiduciary practice — public regulatory-style listings show a handful of clients and no assets under direct management; the firm advises and refers to third-party managers rather than managing money itself. Dorsett holds both the CFP® and RICP® (Retirement Income Certified Professional) designations and is a member of NAPFA, the Garrett Planning Network, and the FPA of the National Capital Area.

• This is a financial-planning practice, not an investment fund. She sells advice, not products, and there are no account, net-worth, or asset minimums — "fiduciary advice for anyone."
• Fee-only / hourly-or-project model: approximately $350/hour (15-minute increments), project engagements up to ~$4,000, with a minimum engagement around $700; no commissions or product sales.
• Serves individuals and small-business owners, with a natural niche in military and veteran families given her Navy background — often clients "at inflection points, often on the cusp of retirement."
• Core planning areas: retirement income planning, cash-flow analysis, Social Security and Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) optimization, debt management, education/college savings, and risk management.
• Model of engagement: favors single, comprehensive planning sessions and clear one-page action plans over ongoing assets-under-management relationships.