Kehrer Saltzman & Associates and Snyder Consulting Solutions announced Thursday that Kehrer Saltzman has acquired the benchmarking studies that SCS's former principal and founder, Pete Snyder, has conducted for credit unions since 2007.

Based in Waxhaw, N.C., Kehrer Saltzman is a strategic management consulting firm that provides the financial advice industry with research and experience in managing the delivery of investment, insurance, and wealth management services. It currently serves more than 100 clients.

Snyder, who founded SCS in January 2006 and launched the benchmarking studies in 2007, is now vice president of financial services at the $8 billion The Golden 1 Credit Union in Sacramento, Calif. He started in his new role on Aug. 27, 2012.

Kehrer Saltzman and SCS said they have put in place an agreement that will significantly expand the scope of the retail investment services benchmarking and consulting services that will be available to all credit unions.

Beginning with the launch of the Kehrer Saltzman 2012-2013 Credit Union Retail Investment Services Productivity and Performance study, credit union executives will have access to an expanded set of benchmarking and consulting resources including regional workshops, Webinars and additional consulting services to manage their business during a time of declining margins, the firm said.

“Kehrer Saltzman has the capacity, resources, and intellectual capital well beyond any other firm that is or has been in this space,” Snyder said. “I am confident that the Kehrer Saltzman team will be able to take the work and scope of services that I had been providing to credit unions to a level that I was not able deliver as a 'one-man band', so to speak. I just did not have the bandwidth.”

Kehrer pointed out that he and Snyder have known each other for many years and have a mutual respect for the work and achievements that each has accomplished for this increasingly important aspect of the business of credit unions and other financial institutions.

Snyder said he will continue to serve on NACUSO's investment services advisory board. A longtime member of the CUSO group board of directors, Snyder will no longer serve in that capacity.

Snyder is familiar with The Golden 1 having worked there from August 1989 to December 1997. He also worked at the former Addison Avenue Federal Credit Union from January 1998 through October of 2005.