During his career as a financial planner, San Marino High School alumnus Greg Welborn encountered many women who were overwhelmed by divorce and unsure where to turn for information.
“Most people going through a divorce are emotionally unprepared,” Welborn said. “When you add the fact that they are experientially unprepared, you have a toxic situation where bad decisions can be made.”
He said while he could typically offer financial advice, the women needed guidance from attorneys, real estate agents and therapists.
Welborn recently founded DivorceHelp.org as an affiliate of the Second Saturday Divorce Workshops hosted by the Women’s Institute for Financial Education, which started the workshops in 1989.
DivorceHelp.org will moderate its inaugural divorce advice workshop titled ‘What Everyone Needs to Know About Divorce’ on Jan. 9 from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. at Oneonta Congregational Church in South Pasadena.
“It will bring together a representative of each of the information areas you need to understand in one place,” Welborn said.
The workshop will have a panel of a financial specialist, real estate expert, an attorney and a therapist to answer questions. It costs $40 per person and all proceeds will be donated to the Celebrate Recovery Program in South Pasadena.
“Each month we’ll pick a different nonprofit to donate the proceeds to,” Welborn said. “This is meant to be community service and we want to highlight the community and help the different organizations providing services to women.”
Welborn said Laura Giolando was an example of a client who would have benefited greatly from a divorce workshop at the time she was going through her divorce.
Giolando said it was difficult trying to figure out how to pay for an attorney, how to sell the house and what would happen to her and her ex-husband’s assets. She said she wished she had a workshop providing divorce help to her when she filed for divorce in November 2012.
“I would recommend using a resource like the DivorceHelp workshop,” Giolando said. “They’ll help you create a support network that will help you get through each step of the divorce.”
“It’s the opportunity to both tap into a community of people who are facing the same dilemma and get divorce advice,” Welborn said. “It’s a unified approach. You can ask a question that can be responded to by all the experts at once.”
Welborn is a 1975 San Marino High School graduate. He received his bachelor’s degree from Occidental College and his MBA from the University of Southern California. Welborn and his wife Irene live in Pasadena and have three children. He is a partner at First Financial Consulting in Pasadena.
Oneonta Congregational Church is located at 1515 Garfield Avenue in South Pasadena. For more information on the workshop, visit DivorceHelp.org.
