“I had a wonderful experience that year as a college financial representative, not only with the individuals that I had the chance to meet with as clients, but also the people within the office,” he said.

After graduation, he considered a variety of banking and finance jobs, including some in Los Angeles and Seattle. But nothing appealed to him as much as the work he’d done at Northwestern Mutual. He started working full-time in the company’s Denver office in September 2004.

He also married his college sweetheart, Kacie; they celebrated their fourth anniversary this month.

In some ways, his terrible experience at Columbine helps him guide clients now, he said.

“It didn’t necessarily point me toward Northwestern, but it gave me a different point of view,” Ireland said. “One thing we know is that life is uncertain. You can’t control the things that are uncertain, but we can control what our responses are and what we do from that point forward.

“We can’t control our future, but if we can shift some of the risks and uncertainties to a company with 150-plus years of experience, it’s one of the areas where we have an opportunity to impact people’s lives.”

He still shows some physical effects of his injuries, including a brace on one leg and some weakness on his right side. But aside from a few media interviews last April, the 10th anniversary of the shootings, Ireland doesn’t talk about Columbine much these days.

Occasionally it will come up during a conversation with a client, he said.

“Not everybody notices, and it’s not really something I bring up in conversation,” he said. “But if I feel comfortable, and I feel that it would add to our conversation or to strengthening our relationship, I’m not opposed to sharing my story.”

In the past year or so, he has spoken about Columbine to a few groups. The positive response made him think there might be a point to telling his story to a wider audience—not as a tale of tragedy, but of hope and recovery.

He recently finished writing a book, tentatively titled A Window in Time, with Terry Frei, a sportswriter for the Denver Post and ESPN.com, whom he met through a client. They’re looking for a publisher.

Unlike other Columbine books that focus on the killers, his manuscript is “more of a positive tale of overcoming and triumph, and some of the good things that can come from…an experience like that,” Ireland said.