Like some financial advisers after the 2009 merger of brokeragegiants Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney, Michael Salardino said hehad grown frustrated with the changes the trillion-dollarconsolidation brought on.

So much so that he was more open to other opportunities to workelsewhere but acknowledged he wasn't actively looking at thetime.

“Since the merger, it seemed like everyone in the office wasunhappy,” Salardino recalled.

When a former junior partner colleague and one of Salardino'sbest friends was hired in April 2010 at the $6.5 billion Security Service Federal Credit Union based in San Antonio, hewished her well and continued on at the newly formed Morgan StanleySmith Barney, which now had a combined $1.7 trillion in assetsunder management and more than 20,000 financial advisers.

“Things just got steadily worse after the merger. They keptraising fees and adding fees. In the meantime, my former partnerwas really happy at the credit union.”

Having worked there for 11 years, Salardino said he was prettyentrenched at MSSB when his former partner threw out the idea ofhim coming to work at a Security Service branch in Pueblo, Colo.The credit union has 69 branches in Texas, Colorado and Utah. Thatwas in late summer of 2010 but it took him more than a year tofinally make the move. Salardino was hired in August.

“It was a nonconventional move. For me, I needed to take sometime to think about moving,” he said. “But I have no regrets, nodoubts. I'm very happy.”

Salardino is a senior financial consultant with Security ServiceInvestment Group, where he is a financial adviser through PrimeVestFinancial Services Inc., a St. Cloud, Minn.-based firm that servesnearly 600 financial institutions and approximately 25 creditunions.

Since coming aboard, his main priority hasbeen transitioning clients that followed him MSSB to SecurityService. Salardino said he was concerned that he would lose many ofthose relationships he had built at the brokerage. However, 80% ofthem came over. With the recent upheavals in the market, a bulk ofhis time has been spent counseling nervous investors.

“It's been very intense with the roller coaster markets. I tryto be very proactive,” he said.

Salardino gives high praise to his colleagues, Jenelle Chorak,senior financial consultant, and Maria Hughes, sales assistant, forhelping him make the transition to Security Service.

“We are a team and the team is the main reason I made thechange,” he offered.

One of the major differences Salardino said he's noticed betweenhis wirehouse days and Security Service is the “amazingly low ornonexistent fees.” At most wirehouses, fees are generally onlywaived for those clients with $1 million or more in assets, hepointed out.

Salardino said of his current clients, roughly five or six arein the million-dollar threshold.  At MSSB, “the rest wouldget pounded with fees.”

Another difference is the flexibility he has through PrimeVest, Salardino said. Chorak raved about the company'sofferings prior to his arrival. While he has yet to use the firm'sfinancial planning platform as he is still in the midst oftransitioning clients, he learned through his colleague, that itwas better and less cumbersome than others. The investment andinsurance product offerings were also are more extensive than thoseat the wirehouse, said Salardino, who is also a Certified FinancialPlanner. 

“The financial planning platform is very user friendly and itdoes everything I need it to do,” he said. “I was thinking it wasgoing to take some time for me find a platform on my own. PrimeVesthad what I needed.”

In addition to stronger mutual fund analyzing tools, Salardinosaid products such as long-term care insurance are availablethrough Security Service, something he had never seen at MSSB.

A longtime Pueblo native, Salardino was impressed at how steepSecurity Service's outreach was within the community. He said he isan active member of several commissions including one that partnerswith a town in Italy, a local college and a public child advocacygroup that works to prevent child abuse.

Looking ahead, Salardino and his colleagues plan to prospect fornew clients. Chorak is already handling referrals coming fromwithin the credit union.

For 24 years, Salardino spent most of his career in investmentservices, starting at a regional firm, which later became a part ofWells Fargo through a series of mergers and acquisitions. He workedat another firm that later became a wirehouse and then anotherentity that couldn't get a foothold in the Pueblo market. Still, hewas very familiar with credit unions. His first account was at aCatholic credit union and later, a car loan.

“To some of my peers, this was an off-the-wall move,” Salardinosaid of SSFCU. “I've never looked back.”