“At first, Dennis Bell wanted to be a hermit.” This opening line from a 1977 Mining Journal article profiling our company’s illustrious founder helps to highlight the incredible transformation Dennis underwent on his journey to today. His varied life experiences make for great conversation; ask him about his time spent hitchhiking across the country as a teenager or living on a hippie commune in Colorado; serving honorably in the U.S. Army in Okinawa, Japan, or building by hand a geodesic dome he designed with pencil and paper. After all this playing around, Dennis enrolled at Northern Michigan University and graduated with a degree in economics in 1983. Upon graduation, Dennis immediately began his financial services career as an agent with a large insurance company. In 1985, Dennis incorporated Bell Financial Services (then called Dennis L. Bell & Associates) to operate primarily as a third-party administrator to qualified retirement plans and eventually to be the conduit for providing investment and financial advice to individual clients. He built and ran the company, improving the lives of thousands of people, and retired after 30 years in the business. He remains on call to provide insight and support to the Bell Financial team. Dennis enjoys watching his grandkids play sports, traveling to other continents, and riding all of Marquette County’s best mountain bike trails.