About Our Team

Tom Gorman, president of Families and Wealth, LLC, is a former marketing and operating executive at Fortune 500 and smaller companies, and is responsible for business development, project management, and operations. Previously, at Dun & Bradstreet Credit Services, Mr. Gorman was product manager and director of product development. At DRI/McGraw-Hill, he was director of editorial and publication services. Earlier in his career, he worked as an executive recruiter and held positions in credit, lending, and marketing at Bankers Trust and Manufacturers Hanover Trust.

A prolific author, Mr. Gorman has written and collaborated on fifteen business books on leadership, management, economics, customer service, technology, innovation, and sales. He also has extensive experience facilitating communications workshops as a corporate trainer.

Mr. Gorman holds a BS in psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University and an MBA from New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

John W. Ambrecht, Esq., vice president, has been creating and administering estate plans and trusts for families with businesses, real estate holdings, and other major assets for over thirty years. Prior to founding Families and Wealth, LLC, his practice focused on complex estate planning, domestic and international trusts, asset protection, tax litigation, and business succession.

Mr. Ambrecht, who began formally addressing family dynamics in estate planning in the 1980s, is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and a founding member of California Trust and Estate Counselors (CALTEC). He has testified before the House Ways and Means Committee and the Joint Committee staffs and often speaks on succession and estate planning at institutes and conferences of attorneys, business owners, accountants, and bankers.

Mr. Ambrecht holds an MBA from UCLA, a JD law degree from Loyola of Los Angeles, where he was a member of the Law Review, and an LLM degree (tax law) from New York University.

Howard Berens, M.D., vice president, has, for more than 20 years, counseled family businesses and coached entrepreneurs, business executives, and political candidates in leadership, personal effectiveness, management, and communications. He has consulted to family-owned businesses on goals, growth, organization, operations, and personnel, with a focus on the effects of family systems on the business. Prior to founding Families and Wealth, LLC, he also practiced psychotherapy with individuals and families.

Over the past ten years, Dr. Berens has worked with Dr. Goldwater and consulting clients to apply Roles and Rules to family businesses and, with John Ambrecht, to estate planning and trust administration. At Families and Wealth, LLC, Dr. Berens combines these two facets of his work to assist families, businesses, and advisors with matters related to management succession, family governance, and transfers of wealth.
Dr. Berens was graduated from Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed his psychiatric residency at Boston University Medical Center.

Richard Goldwater, M.D. , vice president, works with family businesses and corporations and on matters of organizational behavior, succession and transition planning, conflict resolution, and management and communications.

One of the few original thinkers in psychiatry today, Dr. Goldwater developed Roles and Rules over the past twenty-five years as a theory of human identity and development. Prior to founding Families and Wealth, LLC, he used the model as a treatment modality for patients working to solve problems and achieve life goals. Later, in the 1990s, he found this approach tremendously useful in his organizational behavior consulting practice. Now, at Families and Wealth, Dr. Goldwater applies Roles and Rules to the challenges of family business and governance and succession and estate planning.

Dr. Goldwater was graduated from Columbia College and Boston University Medical School. He completed his psychiatric residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center at Harvard Medical School.