Springfield accounting firm adds tri-state office

Managing Partner W. David Myers on May 2 announced that Brad Baker, Jay Logal and Mark Lamb would join the firm. Baker will be WSK’s seventh partner; Logal and Lamb enter the firm as managers.

Baker and Logal are partners in Joplin-based Baker Davis Roderique PC, and Lamb also works there. The trio will resign in early June.

Whitlock, Selim & Keehn will operate from the building at 112 N. Webb St. that currently houses Baker Davis Roderique’s Webb City office.

Tapping Joplin’s growth

Baker said that joining WSK gives the accountants access to other accounting specialists, internal auditors, certified valuation and fraud specialists, employee benefit plan consultants, tax and estate planning specialists, financial planning and asset management professionals.

“Joplin is an expanding market,” Baker said. “We see a lot of growth and new businesses coming here. In WSK, I saw an opportunity to offer more than basic tax and accounting services, (and) an opportunity to partner with these new businesses to help them grow and succeed.”

Baker said another offering that attracted him to WSK is participation in an association of independently owned public accounting firms that share client service, technical, educational and marketing resources and expertise.

“We are all aware of increasing regulatory environment,” Baker said. “WSK has access to PKF North American Network, and that allows us to tap into resources both in North America and internationally to help address these issues.”

Baker has 25 years of public accounting and private business experience. He returned to Webb City in 2002 after 17 years working in Honolulu. Logal has 16 years of accounting experience, and Lamb has more than 25 years of public accounting experience.

R. Barnes Whitlock, Elmer C. Selim and David A. Keehn formed WSK after splitting from Fox & Co. in 1985, but the firm actually has roots that go back 90 years. WSK merged with another Springfield-based firm, Patricia S. Stoner CPA PC, in January 2007.

Family ties

“We’re excited about the expansion and the new members joining the WSK staff,” Myers said in a news release. “They are very talented individuals. Four of our Springfield partners grew up in the tri-state area, too. We just feel like it’s a natural fit.”

There are other ties among the accountants. Myers’ late father, Max H. Myers, and Baker’s late father, Robert J. “Bob” Baker, started an accounting firm in 1948.

Myers died in 1976, but Bob Baker remained president of that firm, Myers, Baker, Rife & Denham, until he died Dec. 23, 2004.

According to partner Will Roderique, Baker Davis Roderique will retain its name because “Baker” in the firm’s title refers to Brad Baker’s late father, Bob Baker. Roderique and Charles Davis founded Davis and Roderique in 1996 and finalized plans to acquire Myers, Baker, Rife & Denham before Bob Baker died. The deal closed in early 2005.

Jeff Wells is editor of Joplin Tri-State Business, SBJ’s sister publication.