Financial planner Patrick Ireland knows firsthand how quickly things can go wrong.

He was 17 when two mass murderers shot him twice in the head and once in the foot in the Columbine High School library on April 20, 1999.

Partly paralyzed and drifting in and out of consciousness, Ireland dragged himself to the library’s second-floor window and fell out, into the arms of Lakewood SWAT-team members standing on top of an armored car. Televised images of “the boy in the window” were seen around the world, and Ireland instantly became a symbol of survival.

He has not only survived, but thrived. Ten years later, Ireland is a newly appointed managing director at Northwestern Mutual Financial Network, a Milwaukee-based mutual company that provides insurance, investment, retirement, and estate-planning services.

He will head a new office scheduled to open on August 17 at 350 Interlocken Boulevard in Broomfield. It’s Northwestern Mutual-Denver’s fourth satellite office in Colorado; the main office, where Ireland has worked since 2004, is in south Denver.

Against a backdrop of recession and market turmoil, Northwestern Mutual-Denver enjoyed 30 percent new-client growth in the past year, Ireland said.

“People in general are just looking to have some additional layer of security, whether it’s through retirement planning or investing or insurance,” he said.

Standing amid bare white walls, exposed wires, and blueprints, Ireland showed a reporter the 3,600-square-foot space where 11 financial representatives, three support staff, and three or four interns soon will be working. He said he was planning to hire even more people.

“This is a time when the do-it-yourselfers are realizing that they need somebody to help them maneuver through the financial maze that’s out there,” said Scott Theodore, managing partner in Northwestern Mutual’s Denver office.

Ireland and his team had promoted the idea of establishing a northern presence to take advantage of population growth in Broomfield and Boulder, Theodore said.

“We thought it made a lot of sense,” he said.

Ireland has accomplished a lot in the 10 years since the Columbine shootings. Gravely injured, he spent months at Craig Hospital regaining the use of his legs and relearning how to talk and read. But he returned to Columbine in fall 1999 and graduated as co-valedictorian of his class in 2000.

He studied finance at Colorado State University, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 2004. An internship with Northwestern Mutual during his senior year introduced him to financial planning.