It’s easy enough to be captured by the ambiance within the Gig Harbor headquarters of the Threshold Group – the raw wood beams, the natural stone, the gentle sound of a piano playing and the waterway alive with the tide beyond tall windows.

And beyond the amenities, the spirit that built Tacoma’s Frank Russell Co. into one of the nation’s best places to work lives on, here, in the culture of a company that offers its clients no products beyond service and advice.

As a “family office,” Threshold counts some 45 client families from across the United States. Totaling the assets of those families, the advisory firm to wealthy families reports $2.3 billion in play.

And with the recent acquisition of a family office in Philadelphia, those numbers are growing.

This is where old money and new money each meet to become more money.

Want in? You’ll need at least $50 million. Got the money? You’ll still need to fit into the culture.

It’s the culture fostered at Tacoma’s Frank Russell Co. long before that company was sold in 1999. It’s a culture that demands integrity and requires mutual trust and respect among both employees and clients.

In 1994, the Russell family began shaping a philanthropic program that became Threshold. In 2003, the firm extended services to other wealthy families.

“I didn’t know anything about the Russells,” said Threshold President Ed Lazar last week.

Working as a certified public accountant at a major East Coast firm, Lazar had been speaking with a corporate headhunter about seeking a new opportunity. He was told of a position in Washington.

“Oh, I love D.C.,” he said.

But it was the other Washington, and when Lazar agreed to the first interview he’d faced in 14 years, he figured it would make for good practice, to prepare him for interviews with firms with names people might recognize.

“It went from a practice interview to ‘I want this job,’” he said. “It took 10 minutes.”

He had encountered that level beyond the beams, the stone and the water. He mostly remembers Jane Russell, sitting in a corner, knitting.

Three months later, Lazar was offered the job as president. He began in February, 2001, and 45 days later, Jane Russell told him she had cancer. It is her spirit that informs the place today.

Employees speak of Threshold the way employees of Russell Investments once described their workplace.

“We are all very proud of what we do,” said Threshold investment adviser Jennie Tyndall. “There’s a camaraderie that’s quite unusual. It’s a neat place to come in the morning.”

Lazar estimates there are 3,500 family offices – or “family firms” – in the United States. most, he said, exist to benefit single families.

Only about 100, he said, are structured like Threshold as “multifamily offices.”

The principal purpose of a typical family office is to increase and preserve wealth. Threshold offers investment planning, strategy and advice. Staff members provide expertise in tax and estate planning, family governance, trusts, foundation management and what Lazar calls other “legacy issues,” which address the needs of children of children yet unborn.

The firm has ready access to solutions regarding such unique needs as aircraft management, family archive administration and the management of domestic staff.

Also, Lazar said, “we help educate younger generations.” this education addresses such matters as money management as well as ethics, philanthropy and social responsibility.

The firm charges fees – it does not receive commissions for trades or sales. the fees are based on the amount of assets under management plus whatever other services are offered. all fees are individually structured and customized to the needs of the client family.

“They want an opinion. They want a view. That’s why they hire us. It’s strictly an advisory business,” Lazar said. “What our size gives us is the ability to play big, but still be able to operate as a boutique. this is a very intimate relationship.”

“You have to be good listeners,” said relationship manager Kevin Sheehan. “It’s part financial adviser and part psychologist. you have to want to help people. you have to help them see the forest for the trees.”

“Sometimes we’re called ‘renaissance people,’” said senior relationship manager Kristen Bauer.

Simple wealth does not qualify a family to become a Threshold client.

All prospects are required to complete a “client selectivity overlay” that grades such matters as vision, philanthropy and a family’s ability to work with each other.

Questionable integrity could easily disqualify a client, said managing director of marketing and communications Chris Phillips.

“Integrity is nonnegotiable,” he said.

Last October, Threshold announced it would merge with Ashbridge Investment Management of Philadelphia. where the former was founded on the wealth generated by the Russell family, Ashbridge was founded in 1958 to manage steel-industry wealth generated by the Eugene and Charles Grace families. It was Threshold’s first acquisition.

“What was important was the ability to have a significant presence on the East Coast,” said Lazar. “Also, to access talent.”

After the acquisition, only two Ashbridge clients left – for reasons, Lazar said, that had nothing to do with the new principal owners.

“We’d like to continue to add four or five new families a year,” he said.

Andrew Keyt, executive director of the Family Business Center of Loyola University in Chicago, said this week that the number of family offices is growing nationwide.

The number is growing, he said, “partially because banks tend to be more rigid in structures and services, and family offices offer more customized solutions. I think the banking industry is starting to look at that and adjust their private wealth divisions.”

With an entry range between $50 million and $100 million, he said, Threshold “is in the higher tier” of family offices.

Angelo Robles, founder and CEO of the national Family Office Association, is aware of the Gig Harbor group. “They have a tremendous reputation. They are a tremendous firm,” he said last week.

“We would like to have the family firm better understood,” said Phillips, the marketing and communications director at Threshold.

“We want to be the best multifamily office in the U.S. We want this culture to last.”

C.R. Roberts: 253-597-8535 c.r.roberts@thenewstribune.com

Gig Harbor firm a growing home for old and new money