Built on Family and Expertise
Decades of experience with a new perspective
About Pacific Trust
At Pacific Trust, we listen first. Then we get to work helping our select group of clients secure their legacies for generations to come. We do this by championing our client’s vision and engaging future generations. We offer a full range of trust services, estate planning, and financial consulting. We also work closely with families, facilitating family meetings, creating family constitutions, and educating the next generation.
Our story–
The early years
In 1984, our founder, Michael Corliss, made a decision that few others were making at the time. He formed a trust to hold his business assets rather than a corporation. He recognized the flexibility, privacy, and tax efficiencies a trust structure provided. This set him on a journey that ultimately led to the creation of Pacific Trust Company.
During the last 40 years, Michael’s business assets grew in both size and variety. They include a diverse portfolio of unique, nonliquid assets.
Early on, Michael tried a number of different options for trustees, including his attorney, friends and business partners. Michael realized these trustees, while generous and well-meaning, could not serve over multiple generations, nor give the time and attention the trust assets deserved.
As he evaluated his long-term options for a trustee, he was left wanting. His best option was a regulated, corporate trustee. However, too often these trust departments were focused on converting his assets into marketable securities to generate additional revenue. Additionally, he could not find a trust company with expertise to administer trusts with a diverse portfolio of unique assets.
A better way
He knew there was a better way, a way that honored the hard-earned life’s work of entrepreneurs who had built something that could endure.
And so, drawing on his decades of experience with his trusts and family office, he founded Pacific Trust Company: a company specializing in trust, personal accounting, and consulting services for clients with unique business assets. We provide expertise, independence, and the peace of mind that your legacy will be honored.
In addition to Michael’s experience, our board of directors and management team have decades of experience serving as trustees and officers for entities owning significant, complex business assets.
At Pacific Trust Company, we listen first. Then we get to work helping our clients by championing our client’s vision and engaging future generations. For those who’ve built something worth preserving for generations, we are the perfect fit.
Learn about our sister company, Bridger Trust Company, in Wyoming.