One of the first people Porter hired when he took over Baystate was Michael Yoken, who is now part owner and partner. Yoken maintains that it is the team of specialists that make Baystate successful.

"Some other organizations have one or two specialists in-house, but I don't think anyone else [in their market] has the range of specialists that we have. And being as diverse as we are, we are able to maneuver within the market," Yoken says. "With the specialists and advice from money managers we have, we can bring the newest products to the advisors and the advisors can get in front of the client with the information."

Porter began developing his approach to business when he was a child growing up in the middleclass suburbs of northern New Jersey. His mother impressed upon him the need to always be kind to others and try to help them and Porter learned at an early age that he liked dealing with people.

After graduating from West Chester University, he landed a prestigious internship in Washington, D.C., with the Republican National Committee. But when he was offered a full time position in Washington, he declined.

"I realized I wanted to work with people and I could not see myself sitting behind a desk all day," he says. But he says he learned the importance of establishing relationships and of making yourself stand out while he was there. Once he took over Baystate, Porter replaced 45 of the 49 planners. Since then, he has achieved a low turnover in associates, partially by staying involved. Porter or Yoken meets with each advisor at least once a month.

A lot of Baystate's investment strategy centers on educating clients. Stuart A. Randle, owner of GI Dynamics Inc. in Lexington, Mass., says Baystate's ability to explain his options is one thing that convinced him to bring his company's businesses to Porter. Now, in addition to handling the company's business, Baystate handles Randle's personal financial planning.

"Dave is all about personal, long-term relationships," Randle says. "They explain all the options, which is more important now than ever before."

"We always tell people if we are talking on too elementary of a level to stop us, but we want people to understand everything. Some people are brilliant in their careers but they don't even know what tax bracket they are in," Porter says.

"In the beginning, we asked the advisors what they needed to bring their practice to the next level and the answer was invariably the same," Daroff explains. "They needed someone to help them with their smaller clients who had been with them forever so they could spend more time finding new clients. They needed someone to help them prepare presentations for new clients and they needed someone to help with office resources and marketing. Dave always said the lawyers and bankers and accountants should be strategic allies, not competitors. We built a team to work for the mutual benefit of the clients."

The next level of growth for Baystate will be the creation of a registered independent advisor firm, Baystate Asset Management. Porter already has created Baystate Financial Services Insurance Agency to handle employee benefits.