Mikkela Sweet is a co-founder, Director, and serves as the President of Peninsula Bay Trust Company, Inc., managing all aspects of business operations and overseeing all client and trust administration. An experienced Fiduciary Management professional with a demonstrated history of achieving results for High Net Worth individuals, families and their businesses, before starting PenBay, Mikkela was the Vice President and Senior Trust Officer for the Northern California Region of Fiduciary Trust Company International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Franklin Templeton.
Chelsea J. Suttmann is a co-founder, Director, and serves as the Chief General Counsel of Peninsula Bay Trust Company, Inc. Chelsea is also a Shareholder and Managing Director at Barulich Dugoni & Suttmann Law Group, Inc., where her law practice focuses on estate planning clients with high net worth, estate and trust administration, and business owners, specifically inter-family business succession planning.
Paul J. Barulich is a co-founder and the Chairman & CEO of Peninsula Bay Trust Company, Inc. Having founded Barulich Dugoni & Suttmann Law Group, Inc., in 1989, Paul is a California licensed attorney with over thirty years of experience representing high net worth clients and achieving their trust and estate planning goals. He is a Fellow of American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and has been listed as a Super LawyerTM for each year of publication, achieving the top 100 in Northern California since 2005.
Thank you for visiting the Peninsula Bay Trust Company website, and welcome to the most innovative trust company in California. We are different from all other trust companies, and we are excited to show you a better option when it comes time to select your next trustee.
PenBay is new, but it was built by trust and estate attorneys and subject matter experts with more than 75 collective years of legal and financial experience exclusively in the areas of trust and estates planning, administration, and litigation. We know what works. We know how to meet the high bar of client expectations. We know trusts.
We created PenBay in response to client demands for a stable, client-centric trust company that would not suffer the rapidity of personnel turnover and slow response times often experienced with larger banks and security brokerage firms. We built PenBay to provide the most efficient fiduciary services using the latest financial technology.
We do trust administration in a different way – we partner with investment advisors, because direct securities management is what they do best. This allows us to focus on trust compliance independent of trading responsibilities. PenBay is positioned to manage complex real estate holdings, interrelated trusts, limited liability companies and partnerships that large, investment-first companies and banks prefer to shy away from and that individuals who act as trustees are ill-equipped to manage.
Choosing the wrong trustee has significant consequences. In fact, it is estimated that more than 85% of all fiduciary trust litigation cases involve family members serving as trustees. Our trust and estate experiences reveal that selecting the right independent, professional trustee significantly lowers the risk of family discord, unnecessary delays, and potential legal and tax ramifications associated with ineffective administration.
We invite you to contact us to set an appointment with a PenBay professional to discuss whether PenBay is a suitable candidate for your situation.
