Most 401(k) practices are a side business. We built one that isn’t.
Navigate 401K is an independent retirement plan advisory firm, deliberately built as its own entity, serving plan sponsors, their employees, and the advisors who work alongside us.
A firm designed so the plan side never has to compete for attention.
Navigate 401K was founded by Chris Hussar and Caleb Hopkins. Caleb had already established the sister firm, Navigate Wealth Management, so the wealth side of the house existed before this one did.
Chris came from Regions, working the large institutional side of retirement plans. He approached Caleb with a specific intention: build a 401(k) advisory practice designed to go beyond the level of service commonly available in the market.
One structural observation shaped everything that followed. In the founders’ view, when a single firm offers both wealth management and retirement plan services, the wealth side tends to drive the economics — and over time, attention to the plan side can quietly diminish.
Their response was structural rather than aspirational: keep the two as separate entities. That is how Navigate 401K was designed, and how it operates today, so the retirement plan side can be resourced and run on its own terms.
management
“Wealth management isn’t what keeps our lights on. That changes how we think about the plan.”
The plan is the priority here, not an accessory to another business. The people running it are meant to be doing exactly this.
A partner whose incentives sit on the plan side — not one whose attention is pulled elsewhere by a larger book.
Five convictions the firm is built around.
Who we help, and why we care. Everything below is a statement of belief and of how we work — not a promise of any result.
Trust comes before transactions.
A change to someone’s retirement plan makes them anxious about their money. We lead with reassurance and a human being before we ask anyone to enroll, defer more, or move an old balance. Communication is the service, not the marketing around it.
Good defaults are a moral choice, not just a design choice.
Automatic enrollment and escalation do enormous work for people who will never optimize their own plan. We believe our job is to make sure participants understand the default, trust it, and choose to stay — not to quietly rely on inertia.
Advice shouldn’t start at a minimum balance.
Most people building their first real savings fall below traditional advisory minimums, and the industry has largely built around that fact rather than solving it. We believe a participant with a modest balance and a real question deserves a real answer. This belief is why TrailGuide exists.
Meet people where they are, in plain language.
Shift workers, remote staff, and people who will never open a benefits email are still participants. That means in-person and virtual sessions, recordings, print, text, and one clear next step per message. And it means dollars instead of percentages — “$1,800 a year” is a real number to a real person; “3% match” often isn’t.
Fiduciary process should be documented, not implied.
We believe a plan sponsor should be able to see the process, not just be told it exists — an investment policy statement, a service calendar, monitoring documentation, a fiduciary file. Where we serve as an ERISA §3(38) investment manager, we accept discretionary authority and the associated fiduciary responsibility for investment selection and monitoring.
Sponsors retain their own ongoing fiduciary duties, including the duty to monitor the parties they appoint.
These beliefs are what a sponsor experiences directly — and what an affiliating advisor gets to deliver.
We tried to win the client. We found a partner instead.
Justin Ladden, now a partner, arrived differently. He had built his own firm, Kreativ Retirement Plan Solutions, and merged it into Navigate 401K in May 2024.
The origin was almost accidental. One of Justin’s clients was a close friend of Chris’s, and Chris asked for the 401(k) business. The client declined — they valued working with Justin.
So Chris and Justin got acquainted instead, and found substantial overlap in how they each believed plan work should be done. The merger followed. A client who won’t leave their advisor is meaningful evidence about that advisor.
This is also the template for affiliation: shared conviction first, structure second.
A repeatable way of running plan advisory, extended to more advisors.
By mid-2025, the Birmingham practice had a proven operating foundation — a documented, repeatable way of running plan advisory.
The question became how to extend it as a platform for two kinds of advisors: retirement-plan-focused advisors who want infrastructure behind them, and wealth advisors who want to deliver serious 401(k) advice to business owner clients and to the employees inside those companies.
TrailGuide
A solution built for participants and savers below traditional advisory minimums — including people consolidating old retirement accounts and building their first foundation of wealth.
Rollover conflict of interest. When we recommend moving assets from a 401(k) or other employer plan into an account we manage, we are generally paid more than if those assets stayed in the existing plan, which is a conflict of interest and gives us an incentive to recommend a rollover. A rollover is not always in your best interest — you may be able to keep your money in a former or new employer’s plan, roll it to an IRA, or take a distribution, and these options differ in fees, investment choices, services, and protections. You are never obligated to move your assets to us.
The advisor affiliation channel
A path for advisors to build or extend a retirement-plan practice on Navigate 401K’s infrastructure. It is currently being built out, and it is the firm’s present focus.
Growth is the delivery mechanism, not the goal.
Today’s focus is building the affiliation channel: paths for advisors and institutions to add or expand retirement plan advisory capability with Navigate 401K’s infrastructure, fiduciary process, and participant engagement model behind them.
For an advisor, the point is capability and standard, not economics — a documented fiduciary process, an operating system for plan work, participant engagement infrastructure, and a real answer for the participants who sit below their minimums.
And the sponsor side matters just as much: the reason we’re expanding this way is that we believe more plans and more participants should have access to this standard of service. Being bigger is not the objective; reaching more of them is.
Affiliation & compensation. Our arrangements with affiliated and referring advisors may involve sharing advisory fees or other compensation. These arrangements create a financial incentive to recommend our services and to enter into affiliations, which is a conflict of interest. Applicable terms are described in our Form ADV Part 2A and in any separate written disclosure provided before or at the time of engagement. Referral or affiliation arrangements do not increase the fees a client pays.
This page is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation of any security, product, or service in any jurisdiction where that would be unlawful.
Two ways in. The same standard behind both.
This page is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation of any security, product, or service in any jurisdiction where that would be unlawful.