DeBruin joins retirement-plan consultant's growing private-client business. Chicago-based institutional retirement-plan and human-resources consultancy Blue Prairie Group has expanded its small private-client business by hiring wealth planner Don DeBruin. He joins Blue Prairie's CIO Gary Silverman, client-relationship managers Nicole Gable and Sara Storch, who also supports the firm's retirement business.

Blue Prairie's founder and managing director Matt Gnabasik says he's "thrilled" to see DeBruin join the firm, counting it, along with the opening of offices in Atlanta and Minneapolis, as elements that have made 2007 a "banner year" for Blue Prairie.

Same side

DeBruin joined Blue Prairie after "many years" running his own investment-consulting and financial planning firm, where he worked primarily with small businesses and their owners. He first came across Blue Prairie while searching for a wealth manager for some of his clients. "Blue Prairie is unique in the way it works with individuals," says DeBruin. "I know this is said a lot, but we really sit on the same side of the table with the client."

Blue Prairie's wealth-management service roster includes retirement, college, charitable and estate planning and as well as insurance and investment advice.

Right now most of Blue Prairie's private clients, many of them owners and executives of the firm's institutional clients, come in with between $500,000 and about $3 million to invest. "But our average client size is increasing," says DeBruin.

Blue Prairie manages or administers about $2 billion, mainly for pension plans, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. High-net-worth and other individuals account for somewhere between 22% and 50% of its client base -- that's just in terms of head count. -FWR

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