Meet The Team
Rita Abel
Rita Abel, the founder of Abel Financial, has been a practicing CPA since 1982, first working in
various public accounting firms and becoming a sole practitioner in 1991. In 1994, in order to
become a more valuable resource to her CPA clients, Rita began helping her clients with
comprehensive financial planning and investment management services. Since that time, she has
incorporated both disciplines to maximize the benefit to her clients’ financial wellbeing.
Rita’s personal journey has seen her family escape Poland during the holocaust and make her
way through Russia and Israel as a young girl before making her way to the US. She has seen the
worst in people and governments. These experiences are part of what has made her an invaluable
advisor to her clients for many decades.
​
Rita is married, has three adult sons who are also married and who have blessed her and her
husband with seven wonderful grandchildren – five boys and two girls. Outside her professional
life, she devotes her personal time first and foremost to her family, then to her friends, and then
to the practice of yoga and various other forms of physical fitness.
Steve Stern
In 2018, Rita transitioned the ownership of Abel Financial to Steve Stern, CFP®. Steve brings
with him over 15 years of helping families with their personal finances. More importantly, Steve
is a strong believer in focusing the practice around exceptional client experience and deeply
personalized relationships. Steve has worked with ranges of families from low-income through
his pro-bono financial planning work to helping ultra-high-net-worth families manage their
financial affairs. Through his experiences, Steve realized that his true passion is to work with
upper-middle-class families like the one he was raised in.
Steve envisions a firm built around:
​
High touch relationships built around trust and integrity
​
A business built on advice and not products.
​
A business dedicated to serving its clients rather than the profit goals of a larger
organization.
In addition to helping his clients, Steve is passionate about giving back to the community. He
currently lives in Eldersburg, MD with his wife Emily, daughter Ryleigh and rescue dog Berger.
Steve graduated from the Young Leadership Council which grooms future leaders in the
Baltimore Jewish community and spends his free time volunteering with The Associated, a
Jewish Philanthropic organization. Steve is a board member of Comprehensive Housing
Assistance, Inc. (CHAI) in Baltimore and is on several committees including chairing the
investment committee for their multi-million dollar housing development fund.