With a grandfather, father and brother in the legal profession, Tom Houser seemed destined to become an attorney. The Belmond native studied finance and skipped his dreams of working on Wall Street to go to law school. He settled in Des Moines and made his way into a career focused on wills, trusts, estate and probate law. Now a senior shareholder at Davis, Brown, Koehn, Shors & Roberts P.C., Houser represents clients with a median net worth of $2.5 million. He was recently named to Worth magazine’s list of the top 100 attorneys in the nation, and in December was elected to his firm’s board of directors. He balances several volunteer duties, including his work with the Iowa Health Foundation board of directors, preceded by his many years on the Iowa Lutheran Hospital Foundation board. Despite Houser’s obligations to volunteering and his profession, spending time with his wife, Susan, and children, Charlie, 12, and Clare, 10, remains his top priority.

Describe your experience as a foreign exchange student in high school.

I’m one of four children, and Mom and Dad encouraged all four of us to do a foreign exchange program. I spent three months abroad the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I lived in Ecuador in the town of Cuenca, which is in southern Ecuador, about 100 miles from Machu Picchu. That was 25 years ago, and I can literally tell you days with great detail as if it had happened yesterday. It was really very influential, and it broadened our horizons tremendously. The friendships that were formed lasted a long, long time. And it’s fair to say that our children have a great likelihood of doing the same thing.

What educational experiences did you take away from your time in Ecuador?

I was there for two reasons. One was to learn and see what their culture was all about and the other was to learn Spanish. Most of the people in Ecuador, and most of the world, speak a fair amount of English. But I encouraged people to speak Spanish to me so I could learn the language. Every day I carried a dictionary and a notepad, and I marked down the words I didn’t know and studied them. Toward the end of the summer, I was to the point where I could dream in Spanish.

Coming from a family of attorneys, did you ever feel pressured to enter the legal field?

I never felt any pressure. If anything, my grandmother steered me to become an architect. When I first went to college, I was first enrolled in the architecture school at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I quickly learned that was not my gig. I really like finance, numbers and the stock market, so in the ideal world, I would have graduated from college, done a stint on Wall Street and then gone back to the law. But the law was always out there.

Do your own professional interests mirror those of your father and brother?

It’s very similar to my dad’s practice and it is diametrically opposed to my brother’s practice. My brother passed away three years ago, but he loved the courtroom, and I am not a litigator. My dad and I both do wills and trusts and real estate matters and general corporate (law). He was as much a mentor to me as the partners at my first law firm.

How has your father been a mentor to you?

My mother is a schoolteacher and my dad is a lawyer, but they’re both very strong teachers. If I ever had a question, they told me to just pick up the phone, and that continued in the practice of law. I figured I was making strides in the practice when instead of me calling Dad, Dad actually called me one day.

How did you land in the area of probate, wills, trusts and tax law?

I had been with (Beving, Swanson & Forrest P.C.) less than six months when one of the partners pulled me aside and said I had the personality for probate. To this day, I don’t know if that was a complement or an insult. But to her credit, it was a fit.

What do you think made you stand out in the selection process for the Worth 100 list?

I don’t know the answers to what distinguished me from the rest of the nominees. There was a question on the application that asked, “What’s the most unique estate planning tool you used in the past year?” I intimated to them that I had used some of the more unique tools. But ultimately what gives you the most gratification is doing what the client needs.

Why is volunteering such an important part of your life?

Margaret Swanson, who is a quintessential volunteer in the city of Des Moines, kind of became my surrogate mother and took me under her wing, echoing the advice of my parents, which was get involved. She really steered me down that path. And that’s what our profession is all about – you grow and help others. You can’t help and advise them if you’re not involved in the community.

How do you spend your free time?

I play a lot of basketball, and I probably know more people through basketball than anything else. I’m coaching my son’s team, and I’m very pleased to see that Clare is playing and she likes it. But we’re very focused on family. We try to have one night a month where it’s nothing but the four of us. Family has to come first. We’re blessed with two great kids, and I’m blessed with a very understanding wife.

Do you continue to travel?

Growing up, my family traveled the continental United States. Susie and I have always taken our trips. But the master plan has been to take our trips at age-appropriate times so that what we’re seeing is what the kids are learning, and it gives them a frame of reference. But we’ve also been told that as the kids are teenagers they often lose interest in traveling with their parents. So we’re just going to make the carrot a little more enticing by making the trips nicer, hopefully abroad. We’ll trade in Yellowstone for Rome.