BUILT ON INDEPENDENCE AND FAMILY
ABOUT BRIDGER TRUST
At Bridger Trust Company, we listen first. Then we get to work helping our select group of clients secure their legacies for generations to come. We do this by championing our client’s vision and engaging future generations. We offer a full range of trust services, estate planning, and financial consulting. We work closely with families, facilitating family meetings, creating family constitutions, and educating the next generation.
OUR STORY—
THE EARLY YEARS
In 1984, our founder, Michael Corliss, made a decision that few others were making at the time. He formed a trust to hold his business assets rather than a corporation. He recognized the flexibility, privacy, and tax efficiencies a trust structure provided. This set him on a journey that ultimately led to the creation of Bridger Trust Company.
During the last 40 years, Michael’s business assets grew in both size and variety. They include a diverse portfolio of unique, nonliquid assets.
Early on, Michael tried a number of different options for trustees, including his attorney, friends and business partners. Michael realized these trustees, while generous and well-meaning, could not serve over multiple generations, nor give the time and attention the trust assets deserved.
As he evaluated his long-term options for a trustee, he was left wanting. His best option was a regulated, corporate trustee. However, too often these trust departments were focused on converting his assets into marketable securities to generate additional revenue. Additionally, he could not find a trust company with expertise to administer trusts with a diverse portfolio of unique assets.
A BETTER WAY
Michael knew there was a better way, a way that honored the hard-earned life’s work of entrepreneurs who had built something that could endure.
And so, drawing on his decades of experience with his trusts and family office, he founded Pacific Trust Company: a Washington state trust company specializing in trust, personal accounting, and consulting services for clients with unique business assets. Since 2017, Pacific Trust Company has provided expertise, independence, and the peace of mind that your legacy will be honored.
As Pacific Trust grew and took on new clients, Michael and his team began to explore the idea of a Wyoming-based trust company. A company that offers our clients the freedom to choose their trust situs, and allows them to benefit from the legal framework and favorable tax environment that Wyoming has to offer. And thus, Bridger Trust Company was created.
Learn about Pacific Trust Company, our sister company in Washington state.
