Falcon woman: community and career

By Bill Radford

Brandy Merriam is a strong believer in community service. She served a three-year term on the El Paso County Commission and has been involved with local schools and nonprofits, including Care and Share Food Bank of Southern Colorado.

“There was no food bank when I grew up, so I have always supported Care and Share,” said Merriam, who works to help fill tables at the organization’s annual fundraisers, among other things.

In her job as a financial adviser, Merriam promotes a spirit of volunteerism with her clients, particularly retirees who may be looking for ways to fill their time. “There are around a thousand volunteer positions in our county at any given time,” she said. “You need to get out there and make your voice heard.”

Merriam and her husband, Ron, moved to Falcon in 1996 after he was stationed at Fort Carson. They have now been married for 37 years; Ron retired from the military and went on to earn a degree in IT. Growing up in a military family and then marrying into one, Brandy was accustomed to moving around, but they have remained in the Falcon area for all those years, although they did move from their first home to a second one at the end of 2017, in a neighborhood that is home mostly to retired military.

“My kids grew up and left,” she said. “Instead of downsizing like a lot of people, we upsized.” One thing that excited her about her new neighborhood, which is less out in the country and closer to amenities: “I was tickled because we could get pizza delivered.”

After coming to the Colorado Springs area, Merriam worked for several years at Phil Long Dealerships. But the long hours and the knowledge that the men were making significantly more money than she was wore on her. “Someone approached me from the financial industry, insurance, since I was good with numbers and people. That’s how I got into this business, and hopefully I make enough money to buy dog food.”

She started her career as a financial adviser with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, training in New York at the World Trade Center. She has worked at Ameriprise Financial Services and elsewhere; now she is part of Upstream Investment Partners, a network of independent financial advisers. Last year, she celebrated her 10th year of recognition as a Five Star Wealth Manager by 5280 magazine — an award that honors financial professionals “who demonstrate outstanding client satisfaction and professional achievement” — and she was featured in a Women in Wealth special section in the October/November issue of Fortune magazine.

Her focus is on generational wealth strategies, taking care of everyone from grandparents to kids. “I have a lot of couples, quite a few single females,” she said of her client base. When crafting a portfolio, she starts with protection — protecting the assets the client already has — and then turning to growing those assets.

“At some point, somebody is going to be mad because they have lost money,” Merriam said. “But knock on wood, I haven’t gone through that.”

She prides herself on her accessibility. “You might get one hour once a year with a big company and they get 1 percent,” she said. “Most of my clients talk to me every quarter; some of my clients are every month.”

Merriam originally went to college for veterinary medicine, but that didn’t translate into a career. However, dogs have been a big part of her and her family’s life. For 28 years, they raised and showed and competed with Saint Bernards; now she raises corgis.

“I didn’t do 4H with my kids, but they learned a lot with the dogs,” she noted. Her kids are still around and close by; her daughter works for the county and her son is an engineer.

Merriam has seen significant growth in Falcon over the decades she has lived there. She believes in growth, but controlled growth.

“If we continue to grow at this massive rate, we’ll be Denver,” Merriam said. “The projections are for Colorado Springs to be larger than Denver, and you’re going to lose that small town feel.”