Real West Virginian of the Week: Curtis Brent Wilmoth — Building a life around family, faith, and West Virginia’s youth
Curtis Brent Wilmoth has spent nearly three decades building a career in financial planning, but ask him what business he’s really in, and his answer has little to do with money.
By Hannah Yost, RealWV
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Curtis Brent Wilmoth has spent nearly three decades building a career in financial planning, but ask him what business he’s really in, and his answer has little to do with money.
“I really am in the people business,” Wilmoth said.
It’s a philosophy that has extended far beyond his professional career. From helping build a children’s hospital to mentoring young people, creating opportunities for children with disabilities, supporting young people with serious illnesses, and helping launch a collegiate clay target team, Wilmoth’s life has increasingly centered on one thing — investing in people.
And much of that perspective began in Philippi.
Wilmoth grew up in the Barbour County community in what he remembered as a quintessential small-town childhood — mornings spent completing chores, afternoons riding his bicycle to the Philippi City Pool, evenings at Little League practice, and a community where seemingly every adult looked out for every child.
“I don’t think I ever knew any real great fear,” Wilmoth said. “Philippi was just a true hometown where everybody knew your name.”
He also came away with an education he didn’t fully appreciate until years later. Wilmoth recalled entering college assuming students from larger communities had been given greater opportunities, only to discover that his teachers in Philippi had prepared him well.
“It took some age and maturity to realize that I wasn’t at all behind,” Wilmoth said. “Actually, I had all the tools I needed and maybe more.”
Today, Wilmoth operates Ohana Wealth Legacy in Morgantown, where his approach to financial planning reflects the same emphasis on relationships.
For Wilmoth, financial planning is ultimately about helping families determine how to use what they’ve earned and eventually pass it to the next generation. He considers his clients family, too — the kind of people he wants to stop and talk with when he sees them in the grocery store rather than avoid in another aisle.
“You actually got to give a darn,” Wilmoth said. “I’m always eager to see my clients because I consider them family.”
That interest in people has also shaped a remarkable record of community service.
After becoming involved with youth projects through the Marion County Chamber of Commerce and his church, Wilmoth joined Chestnut Mountain Ranch, where he served on the board for 15 years, including 12 years as chairman.
He later became involved in efforts surrounding what would become WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital, chaired fundraising campaigns, helped with the Holy Pursuit Dream Foundation, and worked on the Growing Up Fund Project, which created a fully accessible playground in Fairmont for children with disabilities.
Along the way, Wilmoth said the community began giving him an unofficial title.
“You’re the kids guy,” he recalled people telling him. “You’re the guy that’s always doing something with kids.”
His involvement with WVU Medicine Children’s became deeply personal.
Wilmoth’s son, Brody, was born prematurely, and Wilmoth recalled watching medical professionals fight to keep his son alive. The experience left him convinced those caring for West Virginia’s children deserved better facilities.
“I felt like those people deserved better facilities to continue the good work they were doing,” Wilmoth said.
When others questioned whether West Virginia’s population could support a freestanding children’s hospital, Wilmoth pushed back.
“Quit thinking about the demographics,” Wilmoth recalled saying, “and let’s go solve something that the rest of the world’s not been able to solve.”
That willingness to challenge expectations is something Wilmoth traces back to his youth.
As a high school student representing West Virginia at a national competition, he remembered entering a room with the state’s delegation as other students chanted, “Here come the hillbillies.”
Instead of being embarrassed, Wilmoth saw it as motivation.
“That’s what we have to do from West Virginia — prove them wrong,” he said.
That attitude has followed him throughout his life.
“When my community’s healthier, I’m healthier,” Wilmoth said. “And I do love to see things grow. I mean, I just love to see things come out of the ground when everybody else said that can’t happen.”
Most recently, that philosophy has helped Wilmoth turn his attention to another challenge: keeping talented young people in West Virginia.
After his son became involved in competitive clay target shooting, Wilmoth saw young athletes being recruited to colleges outside the state because West Virginia institutions did not offer the same opportunity.
So, once again, his response was to help build one.
A clay target team is now taking shape at Fairmont State University, with the goal of giving West Virginia athletes another reason to pursue their talents — and their education — at home. Community enthusiasm came before the team even had athletes, with donors contributing more than $23,000 during a university day of giving.
For Wilmoth, retaining young West Virginians is about much more than one sport.
“We’ve been a chief exporter of talent,” he said, arguing that West Virginia must become more intentional about connecting its college graduates with businesses, careers, and opportunities inside the state.
But when speaking directly to young West Virginians who hope to build a life here, Wilmoth’s advice began somewhere more personal.
“You’ve got to find your real purpose first,” he said. “And if your purpose is to get a million dollars in the bank, you haven’t found your real purpose.”
For Wilmoth, that purpose is grounded in his Christian faith. He described his daily “non-negotiable” simply: “I add value or I don’t participate.”
That means adding value to his clients, his staff, his son, the young people he mentors, and the communities he serves.
Of all the accomplishments Wilmoth could point to, however, his answer about what makes him proudest had nothing to do with a hospital, business, foundation, or board.
“Marrying my wife,” he said. “That’s the best sales job I ever did. I married up.”
It was his wife, Denise “Dee Dee” Wilmoth, who nominated him to be a Real West Virginian of the Week.
Knowing she believed his story deserved recognition, he said, was humbling.
“The greatest job I’ve ever been given on the planet is getting to be her husband and Brody’s dad,” Wilmoth said.
For Wilmoth, perhaps that’s where the different pieces of his story ultimately meet.
The financial planner, volunteer, mentor, father, husband, and self-described “kids guy” are not separate roles. They’re extensions of the same belief he has carried from his childhood in Philippi into communities across West Virginia: when you have an opportunity to add value to someone else’s life, you do it.
And when someone says West Virginia can’t do something, Wilmoth would rather get to work proving them wrong.
Know someone who should be featured? Email your nomination to news@therealwv.com.
