Green Hawaii: How Russian Natalia Peters found herself awash in sun, sand and sales in the 50th state.

What do you get if you cross a Russian linguist with a surfer's Mecca and a population made up of the poorest and richest inhabitants of Southeast Asia? Natalia Peters' burgeoning practice at American Savings Bank in Central Oahu, Hawaii, that's what.

Peters, a Uvest rep who produced $600,000 in 2007 and manages $20 million in assets, wound up in both places more by chance than design. "Fate brought me to Hawaii," she says.

Peters, 38, born Natalia Zakharova, was raised in Moscow and studied at Russia's University of Foreign Languages in Nizny Novgorod. While traveling for her job at a Russian import-export trade company in the Netherlands, she befriended a fellow traveler from Hawaii, and visited a few times before she moved to Honolulu in 1997. "I decided that here is where I want to live," she says. "It's got everything-great weather, the ocean, even mountains."

But there wasn't much demand for her European language skills in the South Pacific. In 2002, she bumped into a fellow Russian expat who worked for American Express Financial Advisors, now Ameriprise. "We had coffee and he explained to me what he did," Peters says. "I thought it would be dry and boring and all about numbers, but he made it sound more like a people job. I applied almost immediately after that." The firm hired her, paid for her to get her licenses and put her through training in financial planning, including tax planning, risk management and practice management. "This training promotes relationship-based business rather than just transactional, which helps to retain the clients," Peters explains.

NO COMPETITION

Peters would have stayed at American Express had she not married a surfer from San Diego who moved the couple to Hawaii's surfing hub, the North Shore in Oahu, in 2005. "It's not as busy as it was in Honolulu, it's more laid back," says Peters. The commute to Honolulu was too far and Oahu is too isolated for a start-up office. As a result, Peters "considered working in a bank because of access to all its existing clientele who need service." Coincidentally, American Savings Bank, which has a major presence in Oahu, was looking for a full-time financial advisor in the North Shore area.

Peters took over the bank's three local branches. She found working in a bank very different from the fast-paced world of her former broker-dealer, and everyone in this remote area already knew each other. While this was initially intimidating, Peters found the remoteness worked in her favor. Since the territory was so poorly covered, "right from the beginning, I've gotten referrals poured on me," she says. "The need was there. There's no local competition, so business rolled in right from the start."