Then one day after work he got back to his apartment complex and noticed a few big Chevrolet Caprice Classic vehicles parked out front. He walked up the stairs to his second-floor apartment and saw three plainclothes policemen standing outside his door. They said his name in a way that was more of a question than a statement, and when he said yes they arrested him and took him down to the Akron courthouse.

Kroskey was charged with selling methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, better known as ecstasy. The alleged crime had occurred while he was still an undergrad at the University of Akron. Some of his cohorts had been arrested a couple of years before, and eventually the law caught up with Kroskey. He was processed and released that day, but not before they took the laces from his shoes.

"When they finally let me go I was trying to walk to someone's house and I didn't have any shoelaces in my shoes," he recalls. But Kroskey had much more to worry about than his footwear.

"Your world comes crashing down," he says. "I went through disbelief and shock, then I was scared wondering what was going to happen to my career and to my life." It would be another half-year before his case was resolved, and in February 2003 he pleaded guilty and was sent to prison. 

Nine years later, Kroskey, 35, is running a small, successful financial planning practice in Akron. His company, True Wealth Design LLC, is a five-employee registered investment advisor with roughly 70 clients and $40 million in assets under management. His business is growing, and he aims to boost the firm's revenue to $1.5 million in five years, or triple the expected year-end 2012 amount.

On the surface, the firm looks like any number of young advisory practices on the rise. But Kroskey's backstory is different from most of his peers', as his felony made it difficult for him to get his professional licenses and hang out his shingle. Kroskey regrets his youthful indiscretion, but he's proud of how he forged his own path in the advisory industry. "It's a story about perseverance," he says. "It's about overcoming hurdles and doing good on the other side."

The Wrong Crowd

Kroskey grew up in a self-described "upper poor" household near Pittsburgh. His father was a steelworker who became a mail carrier after the mill shut down, and his mother worked in food service. Kroskey says his father was an alcoholic who was physically and emotionally abusive. "I was the oldest of three and probably took the brunt of it," he explains.

Kroskey's social circle didn't do him any favors, either. "They were a fairly unproductive group of friends," he says, adding they went from alcohol to pot to other substances. He hung out with a similar crowd in college. "I didn't set out to be a drug dealer," he says. "You have a lot of friends in a certain environment, and it just sort of happens."

Kroskey's involvement with ecstasy occurred over roughly six months in 2000, but then he quit that scene after some of his friends were arrested. He majored in education and minored in physics at college, and eventually graduated with a 3.4 grade point average. He thought he had put his ecstasy past behind him.

He got interested in the financial markets during the tech boom, and after his teaching job proved to be desultory he switched gears and entered the financial services industry. He briefly worked with an insurance company, and then was hired to do technical market analysis with Valmark Securities, an Akron-based independent broker-dealer. His job duties there included portfolio analysis and working on an ETF platform the company was developing at the time. Meanwhile, he says he was carrying a 4.0 grade point average while pursuing his MBA at the University of Akron.

And then one day the police grabbed him outside his apartment door, and Kroskey's life was upended. "Look, I screwed up and I take personal responsibility for my actions," he says. But he claims he was charged with selling a quantity of ecstasy that was "several hundred percent" more than the actual amount.

The roughly half-year period between his arrest and his sentencing date was a bizarre period of uncertainty. He thought he might avoid sentencing because the prosecutor's evidence was based on testimony and phone records, so he didn't tell the people at Valmark. He continued with his MBA studies. But it wasn't a happy period. "This was probably the toughest time because I didn't know what was going to happen," Kroskey says.

Based on the amount of drugs Kroskey was charged with selling, he faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years behind bars if he fought his case and lost, so he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 51 months imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised probation. He finally told Valmark in an e-mail when he was about to plead guilty to drug charges. "Their reaction was surprise and shock," he says.

Locked Up

Kroskey was shipped to Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, which was basically a holding tank until they decided where to send him. He was in with a rough crowd, and his 6 foot, 195-pound frame offered little protection. "I grew up with a lot of anger and got into fights, but I felt like I was progressing as a person," Kroskey recalls with emotion in his voice. "And then in Allegheny, I was forced to regress and get into an animalistic mentality just to survive." 

He read a lot in prison, particularly Friedrich Nietzsche, and took strength from some of the German philosopher's famous quotes such as "That which does not kill us makes us stronger," and "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

"It's amazing what you can persevere through if you have the mindset," he says. "I think it was more difficult for my mother, sister and then-girlfriend now wife than it was for me."

During his odyssey through the penal system, Kroskey spent time in prisons in Oklahoma, Georgia and Alabama. "Alabama was like a Martha Stewart prison camp," Kroskey says.

Starting Over

Kroskey's sentence was reduced to 13 months, and he was sent back to Pittsburgh to be released. When he got out in 2004, one of the pressing issues was how to make a living. His mother thought she had an answer. When she picked him up, the first thing she gave him was a job application for McDonald's. "She spoke with them and they told her they hire ex-felons," Kroskey says.

Kroskey had other ideas, like getting back into financial services. But first, he was confined to house arrest for a half-year, plus one year of probation. He hadn't worked at Valmark very long, so he didn't have much experience to offer. His former boss at Valmark said he'd give Kroskey a good recommendation, but that he wouldn't hire him back.

The real estate boom was still in full bloom, and Kroskey did support work at a couple of mortgage companies and applied for a loan officer license. He also did some insurance planning, as well as some pre-planning work on a project basis for a couple of financial planners he knew.

The state of Ohio denied Kroskey's loan officer application, but he appealed. "When I walked out of the hearing, the attorney representing the state told me 'off the record we think you're a good guy, but on the record we don't want to take the responsibility of giving you a chance,'"

So he appealed again, and this time he won. Meanwhile, Kroskey had got his Series 65 license and had submitted an application with the Ohio securities division to become an RIA. That was pending on the outcome of his loan officer application, and when that went through he got approved to do business as an RIA.

Three years out of prison, he was a freshly minted financial advisor. But now what? He had zero clients, little money and several "We like you, but don't want to take the risk of hiring you" interviews with financial planning firms.

One of those was with Cornerstone Capital Advisors in Uniontown, Ohio. "I think at the end of the day we would have hired him," says Mario Giganti, a principal at the firm. "We felt very strongly that he had the tools, the drive, the motivation and the knowledge to be a financial advisor."

The interview process went smoothly until the third interview, when Kroskey told them about his past. That was the deal breaker. "We felt strongly that we didn't want to have to explain to our clients something like a felony on an ADV filing for our firm," Giganti explains. "It was nothing personal against Kevin, and we told him that."

Kroskey realized he'd have to strike out on his own. He started his own practice and began to study for the certified financial planner exam. Meanwhile, he read books by some of the advisory industry's leading practitioners. "I didn't have peers to consult with," Kroskey says. "It's about being self-taught and having a thirst for knowledge and being driven by a passionate desire to do this."

It Don't Come Easy

Kroskey sat for the CFP exam in March 2008 and passed it. But as he would learn, passing the CFP exam alone didn't guarantee he'd be awarded the designation.

Later that year, he was hired by the certified financial planner certification program at Tri-C Corporate College in Cleveland to teach a CFP-required course in retirement planning. To qualify for the job, he showed the school that he had passed the test and was awaiting approval to become an official CFP designee.

As for his CFP candidacy, Kroskey's background caused his application to be referred to the CFP Board's Disciplinary and Ethics Commission (DEC), which looked at his case very carefully.

Time dragged on with no word from the CFP Board. "I completely understand that you want good people in the profession and you have to put them through a screening process, but you have to be practical, too," he says.

For its part, the CFP Board says it unequivocally spells out its strict standards for earning its designation. "The rules are clearly stated so that every CFP candidate is aware of the bars to become certified," says a CFP Board spokesman. "It's their responsibility to be aware of that."

Conduct deemed "unacceptable" for CFP certification includes felony convictions for various financial-based crimes, violent crimes such as murder and rape, and other violent crimes committed within the past five years.

Conduct deemed a "presumptive bar" includes a felony conviction for non-violent crimes (including perjury) within the last five years. Kroskey's case fell under that category. In such presumptive situations, the DEC reviews the applicant's case and either grants them the CFP marks, denies the petition but allows them to reapply for certification, or permanently denies them certification.

It wasn't until September 2009 that Kroskey was granted his CFP designation. As part of that approval, the CFP Board issued a public letter of admonition to Kroskey that cited his felony conviction, as well as his failure to report his conviction to the Ohio Department of Insurance within 30 days from the date of his conviction.

Regarding the latter, the CFP Board's letter acknowledged that Kroskey's insurance-related infraction occurred because he was incarcerated at the time. The letter also mentioned a couple of mitigating factors in Kroksey's favor--that his drug dealing occurred long before he entered the financial services industry, and that his current professional life showed a commitment to the profession "despite the career-long disadvantage he will experience due to his poor behavior in the past."

"The letter of admonition punished me at the same time they let me in," Kroskey says. "I felt like I was being hazed to be a part of the fraternity."

Building A Practice

Kroskey says he spent about $1,000 to get his business off the ground. "You can start your business on a budget if you need to," he says.

He relied on self-marketing and community outreach to find clients. He did a radio show on financial topics for a short period, and taught retirement planning seminars at local universities. "I met a lot of people through that and that's how I really grew my business," he says. "I'm still doing it, and I'm still getting clients from it."

Flying solo, he worked out of executive offices where he paid for the space as needed. Later, he subleased space from an insurance wholesaler while doing some work for them. "I needed commissions coming from somewhere because I didn't have any cash reserves," Kroskey says, adding he also did some mortgage loans to bring in income.

Today, True Wealth Design is a fee-based shop that emphasizes holistic advice and comprehensive financial planning. Less than 10% of its revenue comes from life insurance commissions.

Kroskey is a modern portfolio theory guy who believes the market is pretty efficient at the asset class level. "We think it's possible to add alpha by managing client expectations and at the allocation level," he says. "It ties back to the financial plan and when they'll need the money."

On the equity side, Kroskey uses mostly funds from Dimensional Fund Advisors. On the fixed income side, he deploys both individual bonds and bond funds--their use determined by a client's asset level, time horizon and cash flow needs. He'll also incorporate some alternative investments, such as the iPath S&P 500 Dynamic VIX exchange-traded note that tracks a VIX futures index.

Kroskey says most of his clients are midlevel managers or professionals between the ages of 55 and 65. The average client has roughly $500,000 in investable assets, and the firm has about 15 millionaire clients. "Most of my clients aren't dealing with behavioral issues like spending too much money," Kroskey says. "It's more about building portfolios and minimizing taxes, and tying it back to their financial plans and doing distribution planning."

The firm also provides fiduciary services to employer-sponsored retirement plans, which is a small piece of the overall pie that Kroskey expects to increase over time.

Getting The Monkey Off His Back

Kroskey's felony is public record on his ADV form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. "I haven't lost any clients because of it after I told them, but I have lost some potential clients when they found something online," he says.

His ADV details his background, and it states his willingness to talk about it. But Kroskey doesn't lead with it when meeting prospective clients, nor do all of his clients know about his felony (demonstrating that not every prospective client reads an ADV form before choosing an advisor).

"There's not a client I don't intend to tell," Kroskey says, adding that it's more of a "feel" issue based on the comfort level he's built up with a particular client that dictates when he thinks the time is right to tell them.

John Dial, a 63-year-old recent retiree from Copley, Ohio, and his wife became Kroskey clients after attending one of his retirement planning seminars at the University of Akron three years ago. About a year and a half later, Kroskey told the Dials about his past.

"I know he had some problems with the law in college, but he's continually battling to overcome them in his new profession," Dial says. He adds that Kroskey has continuously stressed his fiduciary responsibility to the couple. "That speaks volume about his ethics."

And Kroskey has won over some of his professional colleagues. Don Tharp, president of Hudson Financial Advisors in Streetsboro, Ohio, met Kroskey in 2009 at a DFA gathering for advisors who use its funds. Tharp says he was impressed by Kroskey's intellect and personality, and saw him as a possible hire for his firm. They met for lunch, but Tharp was deterred when he heard Kroskey's story. "I didn't want to bring all of that regulatory B.S. into our firm because he's got to jump through all sorts of hoops for everything he does," Tharp says.

But he has maintained a professional relationship with Kroskey, and it was through Tharp's introduction that Kroskey eventually became a member of The Summit Group, a select group of advisors who meet biannually to share ideas and improve their practices. Prospective members attend their first meeting as a guest, and after the second meeting need unanimous approval from the group to become a member. "The group overwhelmingly embraced him," Tharp says.

"I'd be skeptical of most people with a background similar to Kevin's," Tharp adds. "But my intuition tells me that his problems are behind him, and I think he's one of the ones who have made it to a better place."

For Kroskey, his acceptance by The Summit Group, along with the growth of his practice, provide affirmation that he has come a long way to overcome his past.

"There's part of me that's so ambitious because I'm always trying to prove that 'I'm OK,'" he says. "That I'm not the things my dad said I was or lead me to believe I was. However, the more mature, evolved Kevin also knows that it's not about me. It's about helping myself realize my potential and also helping my family, my clients, and my staff do the same. It really is about doing my part in the world and making it a better place."