A Tri-City financial planner decided to rebrand and rename his Richland firm after his former employer was gobbled up by another company.

He agonized over the name but came up with a winner in Invest Northwest Financial.

In late February 2016, Ted Vause learned his company, MetLife, would be acquired by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, or MassMutual.

The decision would affect MetLife’s U.S. retail workforce, or about 4,000 advisers across the country, including Vause.

“I was nervous,” he recalled. “It was a corporate decision between two big birds, but I was under no obligation to go to work with another company. I took the opportunity to look for a group that had the same culture as I did. I wasn’t looking for a firm that could sell products, but one that could accentuate the financial planning side and could offer the support with the coming changes in the Department of Labor regulations.”

Shortly after the announcement, Vause started interviewing brokers and dealers who would be beneficial to him and the clients he served.

“I interviewed 12 companies,” he said, “but I came all the way back around. At the beginning, (MassMutual) is not where I wanted to go. I was convinced that it was not going to fit me, and I came back because the value proposition that they were able to offer me fit better than the other firms. MassMutual has more of an entrepreneurial spirit. It allows me to say, ‘What do I want to do?’ And what I want to do is what’s right for the client.”

Steven Kandarian, MetLife chairman, president and CEO, said the transaction will enable its U.S. retail business to sharpen the focus on its core strength in product manufacturing while also providing a broader distribution network through the partnership with MassMutual.

“By decoupling manufacturing from distribution, our U.S. retail business will be more agile, and both MetLife and the U.S. retail business can achieve significant cost savings,” Kandarian said.

MassMutual President and CEO Roger Crandall said this milestone in the 165-year history of his company will result in the transformative creation of a distribution powerhouse.

On July 5, Vause moved under the wing of MassMutual. But while he welcomed the company’s support, Vause decided to rebrand his firm. The hardest part was choosing a name.

“I agonized over a name for months. I wanted to have an independent firm name and do it on my own. I wanted a name with ‘Pacific,’ but there’s one here in the Tri-Cities with that name already,” he said. “So I said, ‘OK, ‘Pacific’s’ out, what about ‘Columbia’ or ‘Blue Mountain.’’ I wanted something that’s not small-townish, but also local, so people know we’re here. In the Tri-Cities, people like doing business locally, but they like knowing there’s a big Fortune 500 company behind it.”

The answer came to him while he was at the 2016 Million Dollar Roundtable meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia. Vause was talking with a friend who’d just bought another agency called Invest South.

“I thought, ‘Invest Northwest.’ And I went online and googled it and bought six domains—anything close,” he said, adding, “I couldn’t get investnorthwest.com, but I could use investnorthwestfinancial.com or tedvause.com. They flow to the same page.”

Invest Northwest Financial is in the same location Vause worked while with MetLife at 132 Keene Road in the Tuscan Park Plaza across from Ace Hardware in Richland.

The MetLife name on the door has been taken down, but the sign is still outside the building because Jeff Schell, an agent who sells MetLife auto, home and life insurance, shares office space with Vause. Vause will focus on all aspects of financial planning, including disability, investments and retirement accounts.

“Most people I work with are 50-plus, and throughout their life, they’ve acquired things. A stock account or an old 401K that’s sitting somewhere—money in different places—and all they’ve done in their life is try to work and live and now they’ve got stuff floating around. They don’t have a comprehensive plan and whether they’re on track to reach their retirement goals, so that’s what we provide: advice. We can consult with people and let them know whether they’re putting enough in their 401K or whether they have an estate problem,” Vause said.

Vause is supported by staff in Spokane and Seattle. There is also a team of attorneys, a pension resource center and an employee education team that provide workshops for companies to teach employees how to maximize their retirement plans.

Vause said he’s still representing the clients he had when he worked under MetLife, and that while the transition is still evolving, his clients are not affected. The biggest change they’ll see is the new logo, which features Seahawks colors.

He plans to have an open house in late September.

For more information, visit investnorthwestfinancial.com, call 509-735-8563 or find them on Facebook.