(Source: Business Wire)Charles Schwab & Co., Inc, a leading provider of custodial, operational and trading support for approximately 6,000 independent fee-based investment advisors, today announced the winners of the fourth annual IMPACT Awards® • an industry-wide awards program to honor advisory firms that have advanced the industry through their visionary leadership, operational excellence, technology innovation, and impressive growth.

The winners were recognized today during a ceremony at Schwab's IMPACT® 2009 conference, one of the country's largest annual gatherings of independent investment advisors. Profiles and videos of the winners are available online at impactawards.schwab.com.

Wetherby Asset Management in San Francisco, Calif. is the Best-in-Business Award winner for its success in business management. The firm has focused on developing high levels of client service, creating a culture of collaboration and broadening employee ownership in the business. Wetherby Asset Management now serves nearly 500 households with more than $2.4 billion in assets. While the company has consistently enjoyed growth through referrals from existing clients and professional partners, its priority is delivering high levels of service to its clients.

Wetherby Asset Management's high-touch client service model requires that employee development and headcount growth precede asset growth. When planning for future growth, the firm examines its capacity to serve new clients from a client service, technology and operations standpoint. It also carefully considers its employee training and education needs. The firm is committed to increasing the number of employee shareholders, which underscores its philosophy that the easiest way to make someone act like an owner is to allow them to become an owner.

The Best-in-Tech Award winner is Bristlecone Advisors in Seattle, Wash., for using technology to extend the reach, responsiveness and growth of its business. Recognizing the critical role that technology can play in efficiently serving complex, ultra-affluent clients, Bristlecone Advisors created Aristata, a practice management system that combines six core applications crucial to advisory firms: customer relationship management (CRM), investments, family office management, document management, search, and client reporting. What makes Aristata unique is its ability to integrate these applications on a single platform designed specifically for family and multi-family offices.

The development of Aristata was grounded in Bristlecone Advisors' philosophy that infrastructure should precede the addition of new clients, but should never dilute the level of service offered to existing clients. The firm, which now manages $437 million, sees technology as a means to build capacity and enhance client value.