Meet the Collective

The People You'll Actually Talk To

Everyone below works together on every family's file, not five separate referrals you're left to manage on your own.

Senior Real Estate Specialist · SRES®

Valerie Van Pelt

Valerie spent twenty-five years in sales for companies like Medtronic, Boston Scientific, and Johnson & Johnson, often in rooms where a decision mattered as much as a cardiac surgery. She brought that same weight of attention into real estate, and it didn't take long for people to notice: her first year in the business, she closed a multi-million-dollar sale.

It's the SRES® certification, though, that changed the kind of client she works with. A grown daughter calling about her father's house from three states away isn't a listing to Valerie. It's a family trying to do right by someone who raised them. She's staged a home for sale within days of a difficult family loss, negotiated around a lender's last-minute denial without losing the deal, and spent seven patient months house-hunting with a client who needed someone willing to wait for the right one.

Within Collective Moves, Valerie is usually the first call: the one who sees the whole picture of the house and the family's timeline, and knows exactly who else on the team needs to be looped in before a For Sale sign ever goes in the yard.

View Valerie's Listings

Downsizing, Space Planning & Moving

Lori Olson

Lori handles the part everyone dreads: forty years of belongings and a floor plan half the size. She works room by room with a family to decide what's kept, what's sold, what's donated, and what goes to which grandchild, at a pace the person actually moving can live with. Before moving day she measures the new space and plans it out, so the sofa, the bed, and the pieces that matter are known to fit before anything is loaded on a truck.

A native South Dakotan and Texan by choice, Lori studied at Augustana University before completing her BA in business and marketing at Texas Lutheran University. She has worked across faith, real estate, construction, facilities management, and the relocation industry, most recently in a blended marketing, operations, and project management role at a senior moving company in Farmers Branch. Navigating sensitive and difficult moves is the thread running through all of it.

Lori comes in early, alongside the realtor. Sorting and packing on her schedule is what lets a house be photographed, listed, and shown without a scramble, and it keeps the move itself from landing on the family all at once.

Photo coming soon

Senior Living Navigator

Kelley Novak

Kelley is the person families call when they don't yet know what question to ask. Twenty-six years in healthcare across DFW means she has seen the same crossroads from nearly every side: hospitals, acute rehabilitation, skilled nursing, and as a community liaison walking families through their options. She can tell you honestly what a level of care actually involves day to day, and what it will realistically cost.

Her respect for seniors started early, visiting her grandparents in a nursing home as a girl. She knew shortly after high school that healthcare was the work she wanted, earned a physical therapy degree at South College in Florida, and has spent her career since in senior living environments. Being a steady resource for people facing the obstacles that come with aging is the part she cares about most.

Born in Dallas and raised in Carrollton, Kelley now lives in McKinney with her husband and three boys, and a mischievous family puppy named Ozzy.

Kelley is often the earliest call of anyone on the team, well before a house is listed. Getting the care question answered first is what keeps a family from making a real estate decision they have to undo six months later.

Estate Planning Attorney

Aaron Miller

Aaron handles the legal architecture underneath every transition: wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and the probate questions that tend to surface at the worst possible time. He works alongside a family's existing attorney when there is one, and steps in directly when there isn't.

His job is to make sure a home sale, a move, or a change in care doesn't quietly create a legal complication nobody saw coming, whether that's an outdated beneficiary, an unsigned power of attorney, or a title issue buried in old paperwork.

Aaron reviews the legal side of a transaction in step with the rest of the team's timeline, so a closing date is never held up by paperwork that could have been handled months earlier.

Financial Planning

Jim Whiddon

Jim works on the question that sits underneath every home sale: whether the numbers actually support what comes next, whether that's aging in place with in-home care, a move into a senior living community, or helping adult children plan for a parent's long-term costs.

Originally from Amarillo, Jim earned his bachelor's degree from Texas A&M as a member of the Corps of Cadets, class of '82, and holds a master's from The American College in Philadelphia. He founded JWA Financial Group in Dallas and served as its CEO for 28 years before the firm was acquired in 2013, earning the Aggie 100 Award twice along the way.

He hosted his own radio show for five years, founded THE OLD SCHOOL, and has been quoted in more than 350 publications and outlets including Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, and CNBC. He teaches in the financial planning program at Texas A&M and has written six books, most recently "The Mentor." He and his wife live in DFW and have four married children and seven grandchildren.

Jim is typically brought in once a family has a real sense of the home's value, so the financial plan is built around actual numbers instead of guesses.

Associate Wealth Advisor · CFP®

Johnathan M. Whiddon

Johnathan works alongside Jim on the financial side of a transition, helping families turn a home sale into an actual plan for the next ten years, for twenty, and for whatever changes in between.

Born and raised in DFW, he attended Texas A&M as a member of the Corps of Cadets and earned his degree from the Mays Business School. He spent nearly a decade as a risk advisor in the insurance industry before bringing that same planning and risk management discipline to wealth management. He is a Certified Financial Planner® and works out of the Plano office.

He lives in McKinney with his wife and two children, and spends his time outdoors, reading, watching Aggie football, and with his family and church community.

Johnathan and Jim work as a pair, so a family gets continuity even if one of them isn't available.