About Eric Tyson

After working as a management consultant to Fortune 500 financial service firms, which provided him with an inside perspective on the workings of the industry, Eric founded in 1990 the nation's first financial counseling firm which worked exclusively on an hourly basis. He started his new company to provide objective, cost-effective personal financial advice. Through family and friends, Eric had seen many otherwise intelligent people make major mistakes in managing their money.

In addition to his counseling work and three decades of investing experience, Eric also has made an impact in the writing and media fields. Much of the personal finance writing and reporting he saw and heard was biased, jargon-laden and, in some cases, filled with bad advice. For example, rather than telling people the hard truth - that one must live within one's means as a prerequisite to building wealth - many publications offer up hyped and unrealistic "get rich without making sacrifices or taking risk" type approaches.

Eric is a best-selling personal finance book author and has penned five national best sellers. He is also the only author to have four of his books simultaneously on Business Week's business book bestseller list.

His Personal Finance for Dummies, a Wall Street Journal best-seller, won the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Business Book of the Year. Eric's syndicated column is read by millions of readers weekly. He is a former columnist and award-winning journalist for the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle.

Eric's work has been featured and quoted in hundreds of local and national publications and media outlets including Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Money, Parenting, USA Today and on the NBC Today Show, ABC, Fox News, CNBC, Fox Business, PBS Nightly Business Report, CNN, and on CBS national radio, NPR's Marketplace Money and Bloomberg Business Radio. He's also been a featured speaker at a White House conference on retirement planning.

In addition to his writing and counseling, Eric also taught the nation's most highly attended personal financial management course at the University of California. He has spoken at many corporations and non-profits. He earned his bachelor's degree, with honors, in economics and biology at Yale and an MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Eric is the only best-selling personal finance author who has an extensive background as an hourly-based financial planner and who does not accept speaking fees, endorsement deals or fees of any type from companies in the financial services industry or product or service providers recommended in his articles, books and his publications.