CPA firm adds four partners

The Springfield office of the CPA firm has added four new partners: Jeff Allen and Brian Hickman from the health care division, Angela Morelock from the firm’s consulting division, and Mary Anne Pipkin from financial services. The promotions took effect June 1.

The four new partners bring the Springfield office’s total to 21. The company has about 200 partners nationwide and ranks among the nation’s 10 largest accounting firms.

Pipkin, who has been with the firm for 24 years, most recently as an associate, said the process of choosing new partners involves the whole company.

“Partners are voted on by the existing partners of the firm,” she said. “Your practice unit – in our case southern Missouri – they put you up for partner. They put your name in, and then the partners firmwide vote on the partnership election.”

The annual process begins in January with final decisions usually made in April, so that new partners can take their positions by June 1, the first day of the company’s fiscal year.

Allen has been at the company since January 1994. This promotion moves him from senior manager to partner. He said the promotion will not really change his day-to-day functions at the company.

“I had client responsibilities before – I managed probably 40 to 50 clients across the country – and I’ll still have that same responsibility,” he said. “The basic difference is I’ll be able to share in the profits that come in from the firm whereas before I just drew down a salary.”

Allen, along with fellow partner Mike Schnake, is in charge of about 12 employees in the company’s Springfield office.

“Once you become a partner, you move into a sort of ownership role, so you bear the responsibilities and burdens of ownership as well as the benefits,” Pipkin added.

Those new responsibilities will be spelled out at the company’s June 10 partner orientation session at University Plaza.

“We’ll discuss community service, partnership agreements, compensation issues, how things are voted on at the firm, how issues are handled, and what is expected of me as a partner as opposed to being a senior manager,” Allen said.

John Wanamaker, partner in charge of the southern Missouri region, said the four candidates were highly qualified for their promotions.

“Obviously, in order to be successful in public accounting, you have to be able to service your clients and meet their needs,” he said. “All four of these individuals have dedicated their careers to providing excellence in client services. Secondly, all four have also been very successful in building their own niche specialty.”

These promotions increase the number of partners in the Springfield office by more than 20 percent. But Wanamaker said that is not out of the ordinary.

“A few years ago, we had five in one year. Last year, we didn’t have any,” he said. “It really varies depending on where the individuals are in their careers and what they’re doing.”

The decision to add partners also must take into account the size of the company, Wanamaker said, especially in the case of BKD.

“To make partner in a CPA firm, part of your responsibility is you have to have the expertise and the integrity, of course, but also it’s your contribution to growing the firm and making it bigger,” Wanamaker said. “Just the economics of any public accounting firm are such that you can’t just keep adding partners unless the pie gets bigger as well, and we’ve been very fortunate over the years that we have very qualified individuals that have helped us grow.”

The firm is ranked ninth on the Public Accounting Report’s list of America’s 100 largest public accounting firms for 2004, with U.S. net revenue totaling more than $230 million. BKD employs about 1,500 personnel in 11 states throughout the Midwest.

Partnership isn’t the only growth opportunity at the firm. George Storey was promoted to senior manager in administration. Storey also is the associate director of tax services and administration. Bryan Bodnar is the new associate director of accounting and auditing for the Springfield office after serving seven years in BKD’s Tulsa, Okla., office.