Eager to take the CFP Board beyond the controversy caused by CFP lite, Garday reached out to some of its most vociferous critics, including Nigel Taylor, an asset protection specialist in Santa Monica, Calif. Taylor participated with Adkins, then chair of the PRO's subsidiary Board of Practice Standards, and others in rewriting the so-called 400 series of standards regarding compensation disclosure. According to Adkins, Taylor made some valuable contributions.

Taylor says that Garday's fresh approach was beneficial. "[Garday] was being very innovative and not quibbling over the trivia" that had often engulfed the PRO in the past, Taylor notes. For his part, Garday asked Taylor to consider running for one of the board's two elected seats in 2003. With the planned shrinkage in the total number of board members, the elected board seats are scheduled to be phased out next year.

Goss was a onetime high-level government official in Washington, D.C., who had often frustrated outside board members with his cautious, legalistic language and lack of openness. Garday was a skilled, enthusiastic marketer determined to grow the number of CFP licensees as fast as possible, but he began to raise other red flags. After the Financial Planning Association (FPA) confirmed that it would require all members of its practitioner division to receive their CFP license by 2010 or transfer to the allied professional division, the CFP Board extended what Adkins calls "most favored nation" status to the FPA. According to Adkins, Garday hoped to offer the same status to both the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) and the Society of Financial Services Professionals.

Adkins and other board members felt that the FPA had sacrificed and made a strong commitment to the CFP mark at significant cost to the association in terms of lost members. Consequently, they were unwilling to extend the same "most favored nation" status to other associations unless they made a comparable sacrifice. Representatives from both the FPA and the Society have attended recent meetings of the board.

Apparently, things came to a head at the CFP Board's tri-annual board meeting in May. After almost two years on the job, Garday unveiled several initiatives that he wanted to pursue, according to participants. Other board members immediately questioned whether the organization, as a 501(c) 3 nonprofit corporation, could legally implement these proposals. "Lou was clearly frustrated at the May board meeting," Adkins says. "He was operating on a playing field he was not familiar with." Adkins also insists that Garday was not about to "do anything stupid," though he would not provide details on the specific circumstances of Garday's departure.

Having gone through the search process only two years ago, Adkins predicts the "same process won't take as long because we recently went through it." However, this time the Board will look for someone with a background in the nonprofit world.

So far, Adkins would appear to be well on the road to achieving his modest goal of avoiding major blunders. And far from being marginalized, the CFP mark is doing better than many would have expected.

The CFP Board has managed not to incense its licensees, but a sense of alienation towards the board's staff remains. "Lou was running it like a business, and I don't think the other folks in Denver realize they are running a business," Taylor says. "But they are very enamored of themselves."

Another advisor with closer ties to many board members is more critical. "The bureaucrats in Denver say they are protecting the public, but it seems to me they are trading on the credibility of people like Rick Adkins and Harold Evensky to expand their own fiefdoms and feather their own nests," this advisor remarks, requesting anonymity.

He cites a recent idea, reportedly proposed by the PRO's staff, to start marketing Web site addresses with the acronym "CFP" following each firm's name for a $500 or $1,000 annual licensing fee. "That would do a lot more for the board than it would for the public, but that's the way they think," he says.