Baird expanded its wealth management business today by recruiting five new advisors who oversee a total of $450 million in client assets to two of its new offices.

Four advisors joined its Fort Worth, Texas, office, which opened last August, bringing the total there to 14. The new advisors are teammates Harold Ryan, W. Clay Ryan, and registered client relationship associate Casie Scheffler. Also joining the Fort Worth office is Wes Oliver. All four come from Wells Fargo and its predecessor firms Wachovia and A.G. Edwards.

Meanwhile, Baird also recruited Andrew Barnett and Carolyn Leith in Raleigh, N.C. That office opened last May. Barnett also came from Wells Fargo and the predecessor firms Wachovia and A.G. Edwards. Leith came from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

Baird has been in expansion mode recently. In just over two years, it has added 182 advisors and branch managers. And it plans to hire an additional 150 advisors over the next few years with a particular focus on the western U.S. Less than a week ago, it announced the hire of Dean Cottle to head a new Salt Lake City wealth management office.

In the last year, Baird has opened or announced plans for a number of new offices. In addition to Forth Worth and Raleigh, that list of cities includes Sioux City, Iowa, Charlotte, N.C., Winston-Salem, N.C., Denver, Sacramento, Calif., Lynchburg, Va. and Portland, Ore.

ûAs Group Managing Editor of SourceMedia's Investment Advisor Group, Lee oversees all editorial aspects of our Bank Investment Consultant brand. He has spent half his 20-year journalism career at SourceMedia and legacy companies. Before taking over BIC in April 2011, he spent more than three years as managing editor of On Wall Street. And before that he was a senior editor at U.S. Banker magazine for four years. He also worked as an editor in the newsletter unit of legacy divisions of the company for three years, covering various aspects of the fixed-income markets.