Salomon Smith Barney seeks to become 800-pound gorilla in Wichita.

As the new branch manager and vice president of investments at Salomon Smith Barney Inc. in Wichita, Michael Schipper's directions are clean. To make his company a major force in the securities brokerage business in the Air Capital.

"Certain firms establish dominance in some markets," says the 30-year-old Schipper, who came to Wichita in August from Davenport, Iowa where he served as a producing sales manager at a Salomon Smith Barney for 18 months (he spent eight years at Merrill Lynch before that). "Salomon Smith Barney is a global powerhouse in certain markets, and in some markets there is parity," says Schipper. "Nobody is the 800-pound gorilla in Wichita, but that is where we're going."

In the less than two months since Schipper arrived in Wichita (succeeding former branch manager Pat Garboden, who is now a financial consultant at the company), Schipper has began making his plans for how to move the needle and enhance the …