Starting Over
The Power Of Perseverance
March 2, 2012
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."
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Something tells me ...... this guy does not think of his clients as "muppets." Fantastic article. The best I've read in six years of receiving your publication.