"You're seeing more and more firms moving out of the cities, because as they become more national-driven firms with national reputations, you're flying out to see those firms, anyway."

Gardiner agreed that the global nature of the economy makes a firm's location less important.

"It doesn't really matter where you work," he said. "With technology, we have all of the information at our fingertips. We don't see too many disadvantages to being here."

However, Bird said firms like Albion keep up with what's happening on Wall Street.

"We make it our business to understand the financial landscape and what products are being created by Wall Street," he said. "Occasionally some good things come out of there. Unfortunately, more often than not it's stuff that's made to be sold, not bought."

Utah advantages

Avoiding Wall Street pressures to follow the crowd in pushing such products is one advantage to a Utah location.

Barlow, Bird and Gardiner all described their companies as collaborative. Because they are not surrounded by dozens of peers, they do not feel as much pressure to conform to the "star system" prevalent among some money management firms.

"We're not on Wall Street, so we're not really in a herd mentality here," Gardiner said. "I think that helped us during the dot-com period. One of the things we've taken pride in is going to get to know companies on our own and not relying on Wall Street research."

Another advantage to operating in Utah is that many talented people want to work here, Barlow said.

"We have a lot of investment consultants coming in to visit us from across the country, and one point we make to them is we're able to hire some of the best people here in Utah for a number of reasons," he said. "The people of Utah are well-educated, and many of them go to some of the best schools. Many want to come back (after graduating). We have an opportunity, when we are hiring, to get some very good candidates in."

Bird agreed that the quality of life in Utah is an advantage for his company.

"We're here because we love living in Utah. We think there's a quality of life here, there's a geography here that we appreciate," he said.

"If we were in one of the bigger communities, like the Bay Area of California, odds are we'd be a much larger firm, because there's a whole lot more money there. But that's OK. The choice we've made is to do a great job for the people in the environment we want to live in."

Growth potential

Bird said the financial services industry in Utah could be poised for growth.

"The message is that if you're a resident of the Wasatch Front or Utah, look locally," he said. "There's a lot of quality locally, and I do think there's growth potential, for a number of reasons.