Portage Trail's mission is to help you effectively manage your 401(k) defined contribution retirement plan.

Prudent retirement plan management requires diligent study and plain hard work. It requires commitment and focus. You can rely on us to help you identify your 401(k) plan's needs, to perform the necessary in-depth research, and then to present appropriate plan management recommendations for your consideration. You demand excellence, and we will strive to exceed your expectations.

Portage Trail is constantly engaged in researching defined contribution plan service providers: Understanding their strengths and weaknesses, evaluating their commitment to client service, and analyzing their operating methods. We will only recommend a service provider to you when we have a thorough understanding of how that provider would add value for your plan, and we also have complete confidence in the future integrity and discipline of that provider.

We are also constantly reviewing mutual funds to identify those funds that are most likely to outperform their peers in the future. Although mutual funds are vigorously promoted when they are "hot," past performance alone is hardly a reliable predictor of future performance. We dig much deeper to determine whether a fund's performance is the result of real talent, or merely luck. Once we identify a mutual fund that merits a recommendation for inclusion among your 401(k) retirement plan's options, we continually monitor it for strict adherence to its advertised investment approach and process.