From Meridian to Savant: A Conversation with Scott Floersheim
Managing partner and financial advisor Scott Floersheim, CFP®, CPA/PFS, CPWA®, RMA®, is deliberate in his decision-making. When Meridian Wealth Advisors joined Savant Wealth Management in May 2026, the Albuquerque-based advisor had spent over a year and a half vetting the benefits of partnership before moving forward with Savant.
“I was seeking a great fit and a smooth transition,” Scott says. That deliberateness reflects how he has built his practice over nearly two decades: carefully, thoughtfully, and always with an eye on what comes next for the people he works with.
Scott founded Meridian as a solo practice and grew it to $168 million in assets under management (AUM), handling every function himself, including financial planning, trading, cashiering, compliance, rebalancing, billing, tax preparation, and all client communications. The decision to join a larger firm was not about scale for its own sake. It was about fiduciary responsibility. “My clients can benefit from continuity in long-term planning,” he says. “Planning for succession is an important part of helping carry out fiduciary responsibilities.”
For clients, the day-to-day relationship with Scott is expected to continue unchanged. They will be offered access to Savant’s broader team of specialists, along with additional educational resources, webinars, and a more robust support structure.
From Tax Returns to Life Plans
Scott started his career as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in 1986, after majoring in accounting at the University of New Mexico. But over the years, as his CPA practice was thriving, clients kept asking questions that went well beyond their tax return and historical accounting. Should I take an annuity or a lump-sum distribution? When should I start Social Security? Can I afford to retire yet? He previously referred those clients to brokers and insurance agents, and he often found himself being disappointed by what they received: product-driven recommendations that could feel somewhat disconnected from his broader planning approach.
So, in 1997, Scott added financial planning to his practice, building it incrementally alongside his CPA work. He has never stopped viewing taxes as central to wealth management. “Taxes are one of the biggest cost components in a prudent financial plan,” he says. “And they are often the most overlooked.”
The Question Retirees Usually Ask
Most of Scott’s clients first contact him as they approach or enter retirement, and most have the same central question: Do I have enough to retire while maintaining my preferred lifestyle and attaining my major financial goals?
Getting to a real answer requires more than analyzing account balances. Scott works through which accounts to efficiently draw from for retirement income and in what order and combination, whether a pension should be taken as a lump sum or an annuity, whether partial Roth conversions make sense, when to claim Social Security, and how Medicare enrollment fits into the picture. Every one of those decisions can have profound tax implications.
His framework goes beyond trying to help minimize taxes every single year. He focuses on helping clients manage taxation throughout their lifetime. “A very low-tax year in retirement presents an opportunity,” he says. If income dips in retirement, then that can be a potential opportunity to complete a partial Roth conversion or to harvest long-term capital gains. Likewise, if income spikes in retirement, then harvesting capital losses or deploying charitable giving strategically may be beneficial. Those who focus only on this year’s taxation may, unfortunately, be overlooking their cumulative taxes over their remaining lifetime.
There is another challenge Scott sees consistently among his most disciplined clients. Many of them have spent 30 or 40 years saving carefully, and when retirement arrives, they struggle to permit themselves to spend. “Many of them may end up continuing to accumulate,” he says. “They may leave substantial inheritances, often more than they ever intended.” Part of Scott’s job is helping clients understand what their portfolio may allow, with the goal of helping them enjoy the life they spent decades building toward.
He also finds that clients often do not know how much they spend annually, or even monthly, before retirement. Without that number, it is difficult to calculate what income they need to replace when their paychecks stop.
Why Savant, Why Now
Scott spent nearly 21 months evaluating cultural and practice fit before agreeing to join Savant.
He views the fiduciary standard as extending beyond wealth management. “It also involves preparing for succession and continuity.” He believes it’s important to plan for what happens when he is no longer their lead advisor.
Scott holds four industry professional credentials and completes continuing-education requirements for each on an ongoing basis. That same commitment to excellence shapes how he approaches new tools, including artificial intelligence. He uses AI in his practice but utilizes it carefully. “A confident answer from AI can still be wrong,” he says. He sees staying at the top of his field as foundational for knowing when to trust a tool’s output and when to challenge it.
His approach to the transition reflects that same care. Scott plans to maintain the ongoing lead advisory relationship with his clients, to introduce any co-advisor or successor gradually, and with the goal of supporting continuity in long-standing client relationships.
Scott spends much of his time outside the office on New Mexico’s hiking trails, drawn to the same qualities he values in a financial plan: preparation, patience, and a route that accounts for the terrain ahead. His family has called New Mexico home since the 1870s. He is not going anywhere. For clients, he believes the transition to Savant should feel like gaining additional resources and support continuity into the future.