Today we’d like to introduce you to Kate Hufnagel.
Hi Kate, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
Ever since the late 1990’s when I moved to the Los Angeles area for my first full-time job as an engineer, I’ve been interested in preserving my financial security.
And this came from my parents; growing up, they stressed the importance of financial literacy. By the time I was 30, I had already worked with an estate attorney to put my first will together and was working with a financial advisor.
Combining my interest in my financial legacy with a 25-year career in high-tech positions (most of the work in support of our nation’s intelligence and military communities) uniquely positioned me to start The Digital Wrangler™. I understand technology and I’m passionate about educating and helping others plan for their legacy.
Most of my clients have come to me after struggling with settling the estate of a loved one. Despite learning some difficult lessons, they committed themselves to putting in the work necessary so they don’t leave a complicated web for their own loved ones to sort through.
The fundamental mission of The Digital Wrangler™ is to make things easier for loved ones left behind — whether it’s by saving them time, money, or both. And because my clients also cover a 20-30-year age range, I always work to meet them where they are. This means I’ll look to them to tell me how much — or how little — they want to utilize technology when organizing their important life details.
So many of us today have family members living in different states; so leveraging technology, whenever possible, makes sense when organizing our important life details. If something were to ever happen to me unexpectedly, I want my loved ones to be able to access the information they need without having to travel to my house — whether it’s discovering the password to my email or figuring out what doctors they need to contact to delete my online medical accounts.
And, here in Colorado, we all are aware that a wildfire can spark easily and spread quickly. So should we ever need to quickly leave our home, knowing our important life details can be accessed digitally means that’s one less thing we need to worry about when evacuating — giving us a few more critical minutes to grab medications, devices, and chargers, sentimental family treasures and whatever toys and snacks kids or furry family members may need.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Starting a new business from scratch is never easy. Thankfully, I’m not known for picking the easy path.
My struggles are all connected to my passion. To me, everyone over 18 needs to have their important life details organized, not to mention have a will and other vital estate documents. (f any readers don’t have these documents, I hope I inspire them to find an estate attorney to work with).
Estate attorneys are exceptional at putting the legal plans in place to ensure our assets and property transfer to our beneficiaries. Yet, after working with an estate attorney, each of us still needs to do more work and many of us don’t realize this.
It turns out, that technology — which makes our daily lives easier — works against our loved ones when we no longer have the ability — or aren’t around — to tell them about a monthly bill or give them a password.
Few people realize this. So I’m channeling my passion and my energy into educating individuals and families — and accepting every invitation to speak to a group of people along the way. I’m so grateful that every audience I’ve spoken to has resulted in another speaking opportunity or a client (and often both).
I don’t want to hear another gut-wrenching story about an individual who tragically lost their spouse/partner and accrued months’ worth of financial penalties because they had no idea what electronic bills needed to get paid.
And every time someone confides in me their heart-breaking story of not being able to get into a deceased loved one’s cloud account to access digital photos, I can’t help but wonder if the person who passed away would have done things differently had they known the emotional trauma this was inflicting on their loved ones.
Another challenge is that my clients don’t — and won’t — benefit directly from working with me. It’s their loved ones who will reap the rewards from the investment my clients have made, making my clients incredibly selfless individuals.
While these struggles may seem insurmountable to some, I’m committed to educating individuals on why it’s so important to organize their important life details. If they chose to do that themselves, awesome. If they prefer to have my help, that’s great too. I just hope the information and stories I share will inspire people to take action to lessen the financial and emotional burden on their loved ones as they’ll already be figuring out how to navigate their grief.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about The Digital Wrangler(TM)?
I believe my work — and my business — are one-of-a-kind. Yes, The Digital Wrangler™, is a digital organizing business. While there are many digital organizers out there, what sets my company apart is the focus on legacy (or estate) organizing and business succession organizing.
Our high-tech world makes it easy for us to do so many things. We can connect with people by sending texts, having video calls, and engaging on Facebook or TikTok. We can send friends money, pay our rent, or even make a car payment from our phones.
Yet, from an after-life perspective, technology has the potential to make things dramatically more difficult for our loved ones, primarily because of the terms of service agreements we consent to when we create an online account.
I am most proud of my business’s volunteer work. My parents, who are both about 80 years old, live on the East Coast and they never hesitate to call me if they need help with something on their phone or can’t get Zoom working. Helping them made me realize that an entire generation of people need help with technology. So a couple of times a month, we visit a local independent living facility and give a “tech talk” on a digital-related topic. The residents are thirsty to learn and always keep me on my toes with questions; it fills my cup!
As for the services The Digital Wrangler™ provides … knowing all of us are unique and have different learning styles, we purposefully built the business to ensure our offerings are as accessible as possible. We offer a digital (on-demand) course, intimate group programs, and personalized, one-on-one services. And we hope to begin offering comprehensive checklists soon!
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
Much to the delight of my traditionalist, Irish Catholic mother, I got married last year! It took me what seemed to be a lifetime to find “my dude” — and it was so worth the journey.
Even better: we took advantage of Colorado’s laws drove up to Independence Pass and married ourselves. And with no cell service, we set up a tripod and recorded our promises to each other so we could share it with our family and friends afterward. My husband and I joke all the time that it was the best 35 bucks we’ve ever spent!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thedigitalwrangler.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedigitalwrangler/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedigitalwrangler
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-hufnagel/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@thedigitalwrangler
