The WK Way
We deliver results, with the care you deserve.
Our promise: to have a measurable impact on the success of our clients.
As our clients’ trusted advisors, we are committed to being an invaluable resource and to applying our professional expertise to deliver exceptional service and results.
Our clients enjoy a relationship with a group of professionals that not only have the expertise to help them, but the compassion to do it in a way that differentiates WK from the other firms. They appreciate the way we anticipate their needs, and we’re proactive at providing ideas and solutions to their problems. Our clients know they can count on us to help them with their compliance needs, but they also understand our goal is to provide them value…to help them be successful. They appreciate knowing that our firm has their best interest at heart, a trusting relationship neither party takes for granted.
This is all part of serving clients the “WK Way.”
IRS for the 1937 tax year. “State and university employees did not file returns at that time period. So Columbians filed one return for every 23 citizens.” A 1938 Columbia Daily Tribune editorial said “Columbia fared better than other Missouri towns. Sedalia filed one tax return for every 34 residents; Hannibal, one for every 30; Fulton, one for every 30; and Cape Girardeau, one for every 27.
“Columbia’s average income for a typical family of 3.7 persons was $1700, a rate that placed it in the upper third of 18 cities the Federal Bureau of Home Economics surveyed.”
Paul endured the accounting profession’s growing pains, including a series of clarifications with banks and lawyers. He kept abreast of the Missouri Society of CPAs Committee on Cooperation with Bankers to
help bankers learn about accounting services and increase the verification of financial statements. Likewise, in 1937, MOCPA initiated meetings with the Missouri Bar to clarify the roles of lawyers and accountants in the preparation of tax returns. MOCPA members felt strongly that income tax preparation services fell within the scope of CPA practice. Lawyers felt differently. By 1940, the MOCPA code of practice included provisions clarifying activities considered a practice of law, and activities within the sphere of accounting.
The 1938 McKesson & Robbins scandal led to major reforms in auditing corporations. The scandal reads like a John Grisham novel, with felons using aliases to hide bootlegging activities through a shell game of front businesses and money laundering. According to Rice University professor Stephen A. Zeff, “McKesson & Robbins had grossly inflated its receivables and merchandise inventory, and its auditor, Price, Waterhouse & Co., had neither confirmed the receivables nor verified the existence of the inventory.
“Neither of these tests was a required auditing practice at the time.” In response, a special committee formed by the American Institute of Accountants promptly issued a bulletin requiring that both tests become standard auditing procedures.
In many ways it was a battle for the profession of public accountancy to gain prominence. Scandals didn’t help. The Securities and Exchange Commission reports that the term “generally accepted accounting principles” (GAAP) was not in vogue until the late 1930s. Indeed, in 1937, future Accounting Hall of Famer and “one of the most influential ‘high priests’ of the profession in the twentieth century,” Carman G. Blough, wrote in “Some Accounting Problems of the Securities and Exchange Commission”: “I am very much afraid it is difficult to name many principles that are generally accepted.”
As the 1930s drew to a close and a world war threatened to draw America into the conflict, Paul Williams was nearing forty years old. His family had survived the Great Depression, and he looked forward to building a growing business. He soon would find reinforcements from a cadre of veterans returning home from World War II.
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Memorial Tower, University of Missouri campus. State Historical Society of Missouri.
1940s: EXPANDING BEYOND COLUMBIA
The Williams Romack Company was the first CPA firm in Jefferson City, catering to a rapidly growing cross section of not-for-profits, associations, and individual clients.
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LEFT: 1940. Railroad Station in Jefferson City. Library of Congress.
THEN… The Williams Romack Company thrived in the postwar environment. And they made sure to give back to the community. In June 1947, the firm conducted the first financial audit of Columbia Community Chest, predecessor to the Heart of Missouri United Way. AND NOW… “We help clients grow their businesses and accomplish their goals. As for helping our people, WK provides mentorship throughout our careers. WK also helps improve our communities by serving on boards, volunteering, and providing donations and sponsorships.”
PaulWilliams brought Richard Wesley Romack into his accounting firm in 1940. Born in Wausau, Wisconsin, Romack had been an IRS auditor in Saint Louis and Columbia. He was a CPA known professionally as R. W. Romack; the firm’s employees called him Mr. Romack.
Paul’s brother Jay Williams joined the team shortly thereafter, working at the firm during the entire decade.
The 1940 census saw Columbia’s population reach 18,399, still smaller than Jefferson City’s 24,268.
At the beginning of the decade, the American Accounting Association published An Introduction to Corporate Accounting Standards. The book, which “provided an elegant rationale for the conventional accounting model, profoundly influenced accounting thought, education, and practice for decades thereafter,” according to Stephen Zeff.
During World War II, IBM built more than 5,000 accounting machines used in Washington for military logistics. IBM also created
An Accountant Looks Back, an Advisor Looks Forward
An accountant could be viewed as a historian, looking backward to help you understand what already happened. Your tax return is a picture of the previous year. Financial statements describe assets and liabilities from prior periods. Bookkeeping functions report activity that has already occurred.
But a trusted business advisor can help you look ahead to future opportunities. How can you minimize your tax liabilities going forward? What can you do to plan for growth, or to plan for the succession of your business? How can you structure your various business entities to minimize risk?
WK works to ensure clients make business moves with intention and advance planning.
Being proactive instead of reactive can save time and money.
the W-2 form and the equipment to track withheld taxes. 1941 witnessed the first parking meters in downtown Columbia: five cents per hour. That same year the Williams Romack Company moved from its lofty perch in the Guitar Building to 14A North Ninth Street, across from the Varsity Theater.
For example, we have spent months helping one client unravel an accounting mess, which we are happy to do when it’s needed. But we’d much rather help clients set up their accounting system the right way from the start, so they’ll have the accurate information they need to make better business decisions.
—Lee Merrick, CPA, Partner
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1940s. An IBM accounting system. IBM Archives.
CLOCKWISE FROM
ABOVE: Firebrick Company.
Prominent on the Mexico landscape was a firebrick company that traced its origins to 1886 when fire clay was discovered nearby. Eventually, Jefferson City native Allen Percival “Percy” Green bought the company in 1910, changing the name to A. P. Green Firebrick Company in 1915, after he had repaid creditors. Green had left the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy at Rolla after one year of college, going to work as an engineer for the city of Sedalia. He later moved to Pittsburgh before he came to Mexico. He began mining the veins of prized fire clay in and around Audrain County with steam shovels in open pits rather than conventional shaft mines. State Historical Society of Missouri. 1942. The Hotel Governor opened across from the Governor’s Mansion, replacing the Madison Hotel, which burned in the 1930s. Construction of this concrete post-and-beam building began in March 1941 and was completed in September 1942—at a cost of approximately $700,000—following delays caused by a shortage of steel as well as skilled and unskilled labor as the United States entered World War II. COMO Magazine 1945. In old Munichburg, Ecco Lounge was serving great food at the same location where it stands today. Ecco Lounge. 1946. The post-war mood was lively, especially on the Mizzou campus. Fred and Deary Gaebler ran a place called the Black and Gold Inn, where students could get a good meal and spend time jellying. Columbia Missourian
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In 1942, the Board of Tax Appeals got a name change to the Tax Court of the United States. The next year, the United States began income tax withholding.
Paul Williams’ work status would change thanks to the state’s second accountancy law passed in 1943 by the Missouri General Assembly. MOCPA members believed the original 1909 accountancy law was too permissive. The new legislation required all practitioners to register with and come under the jurisdiction of the state. The new law had twenty-seven sections and included provisions to lower the eligible age of CPAs from twenty-five to twenty-one, designated use of the CPA title, and grandfathered in practicing accountants if they could pass an oral accounting proficiency test.
Having been an accountant for two decades, Paul Williams easily passed the oral test and was grandfathered in as a CPA.
HELLO JEFFERSON CITY!
Perhaps it was Paul Williams’ affinity for politics that made Jefferson City an attractive location to expand his accounting business. It could also have been his close friendship with Jefferson City newspaperman James C. Kirkpatrick. Or maybe it was the fact that in 1944 Jefferson City boasted a larger population than Columbia.
Then again, it could have been R. W. Romack who prompted the move into Jefferson City. After all, it was Mr. Romack who drove down from Columbia to open the Jefferson City office, located at 118 1/2 High Street, above Nancy’s Hat Shop.
Although individual CPAs had established offices in the capital city, the Williams Romack
Company was the first CPA firm in Jefferson City, catering to a rapidly growing cross section of notfor-profits, associations, and individual clients.
Back then the company’s telephone number was 258.
WILLIAMS ROMACK OPENS MEXICO OFFICE
The same year Williams Romack Company expanded into Jefferson City, the firm opened an office in Mexico, Missouri, located at 16 1/2 East Jackson Street. The town was a hub of farm commerce and would accelerate the Williams Romack Company’s special focus on agricultural accounting services.
When Ed Oliver came on board the Williams Romack Company in 1952, he was instrumental in building the Mexico office. Later Don Decker would further build the Mexico practice with key clients including local ammunition supplier Graf & Sons, agricultural clients from an acquired Vandalia accounting business, and a local company that made the plastic newspaper bags
newspaper carriers used on rainy days. Most Mid-Missourians probably are not familiar with the company Mexico Plastics, operating under the name Continental Products, but the bags they made and distributed nationwide kept newspapers dry for the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and many others. Don landed that account through a Rotary contact.
VETERANS GO TO SCHOOL
When the veterans came home to Mid-Missouri from World War II, they arrived at the Wabash and the KATY train stations in downtown Columbia. They arrived at the Missouri Pacific station on the Jefferson City riverfront. Veterans with names like Keepers and Rackers, Romack and Payne, Oliver and Chronister and Weber.
Thousands of veterans used the GI Bill to go to school. And it would have a positive impact on the Williams Romack Company. The GI Bill—the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944—made it possible for war veterans to attend Mizzou. Within two years almost 70
The Mexico office. WK Archive.
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Wabash Station. Travelers at the Wabash Train Station in Columbia. Missouri State Historical Society.
The First Computer
In 1822, Charles Babbage, called the father of computers, developed the first mechanical computer, the difference engine. By 1833 he created the analytical engine, a general-purpose computer. The first modern electronic digital computer, the Atanasoff–Berry computer (ABC), was built in 1942 by Iowa State College (now Iowa State University) professor John V. Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry. Weighing more than seven hundred pounds and using vacuum tubes, the computer operated a rotating drum slightly bigger than a paint can affixed with small capacitors. The ABC could solve problems with up to twenty-nine different variables, but it had no storage. In 1943, IBM produced the first large-scale computer, the Mark 1. It measured fifty feet long and eight feet high, and it weighed nearly five tons. The first electronic digital computer, the ENIAC, appeared in 1946. The first personal computer, the Altair, was invented in 1974 by a small company named MITS. It used Intel Corporation’s 8080 microprocessor and was popular among computer hobbyists, but it had scant commercial appeal. In a garage, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak developed the first Apple computer in 1976. The first IBM PC was released in 1981. The Apple Macintosh hit the shelves in 1984.
percent of the school’s eleven thousand students were veterans.
And Columbia kept growing. By the end of the war the Missouri Farmers Association created the MFA Insurance Company, later renamed Shelter Insurance.
During this period of economic growth the Williams Romack Company took on a distinctly family feel. Just as Paul Williams brought his brother, Jay, into the business, likewise Mr. Romack brought his son, Richard Edward “Ed” Romack, to the firm. Ed served in the Army Air Corps as a navigator in the Pacific during World War II. Upon his return, he completed college at the University of Missouri and came to work for his father as a certified public accountant in the Columbia office. After several years Ed and his wife, Anne, moved to her hometown of Idaho Falls.
The postwar boom launched Columbia’s economy. As more and more veterans moved to Columbia to take advantage of educational opportunities afforded by the GI Bill, they found a growing community.
In downtown Columbia Ernie’s Steakhouse opened for business in 1947. Woolworths was located where American Shoe and Saffee’s would eventually open.
In 1947, Congress passed the Taft–Hartley Act, requiring labor unions to file financial statements. That same year the American Institute of Accountants (now the AICPA) Committee on Auditing Procedure recommended a set of
“generally accepted auditing standards” approved at an annual meeting in September 1948. The institute also began publishing case studies on auditing procedure.
In 1948, the National Committee on Municipal Accounting was reactivated and renamed the National Committee on Government Accounting. The American Accounting Association issued Accounting Concepts and Standards Underlying Corporate Financial Statements and a preliminary statement of the fundamental concepts of cost accounting. The American Institute of Accountants began publishing annual surveys of corporate reports.
On the home front in 1948, as Columbia’s Hulen Lake filled in behind two massive fifty-foot dams, the University of Colorado joined the Big 6 Athletic Conference, making it the Big 7.
The next year Lenoir Manor opened. Columbia approved the city manager form of government. Locals flocked to eat at the shiny new Minute Inn. Later the popular breakfast spot became known as Fran’s. Eventually it was renamed the Broadway Diner.
Broadway Drive-In Theater showed movies where the Broadway Shopping Center now sits at the corner of Clinkscales and West Broadway. Back then the pavement of West Broadway ended at Clink scales Road.
After his service in the United States Army during World War II, Jim Weber graduated from Saint Louis University before returning to his
hometown of Jefferson City to marry Julia Ann Mueller on June 18, 1949. Two weeks later he joined Williams Romack Company.
Amid the postwar boom, in the coming years Williams Romack Company would welcome six more war veterans into the firm as key members.
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1950s: VETERANS FIND A HOME
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George Keepers joined the firm in 1950 and quickly became a key member.
LEFT: 1955. A new Missouri River bridge at Jefferson City opened. State Historical Society of Missouri.
George
Keepers joined the firm in 1950. Born in Gallup, New Mexico, George had Missouri connections. His mother was from Bloomfield, Missouri, and his family eventually moved to Columbia, where he graduated from Hickman High School in 1937 as senior class secretary. He was a Marine Corps captain in World War II and saw action in the Pacific. He survived the Battle of Tarawa, where 894 of his Second Marine Division brothers were killed and 2,188 wounded. When he returned home from the war, he married Tennessee native Dorothy Dell Clary—who went by the name Dell—on June 8, 1945. He graduated from the University of Missouri.
George quickly became a key member of the firm. He often came to work at 4:00 a.m. and would take lunch at 9:00 a.m. He was loved by his coworkers at the company that would incorporate his name, and he spent quality time mentoring the young accountants, teaching them to be precise. To wit, one day George noticed the books were off by a penny. He spent all day looking for that penny. “Why?” fellow employees asked. “Well, it could be off $1,000 one way or $999.99 the other way.”
From 1940 to 1950 Columbia’s population grew an astounding 78.3 percent, surpassing Jefferson City for the first time: 31,974 to 25,099. In 1950, a gallon of gas cost 19.2 cents, a loaf
Missouri River Bridge
of bread 14 cents. Boone County National Bank got a new bookkeeping machine allowing operators to sort checks by bank routing numbers. On June 3, President Harry Truman received an honorary degree from the University of Missouri and delivered the commencement address in the rain.
By 1950, all American states and territories had enacted CPA laws. All jurisdictions but one had adopted the Uniform CPA Examination. Nearly all major universities offered accounting courses, and the profession had amassed a large body of literature on accounting and auditing. The Major League Baseball Hall of Fame failed
In 1893 the City of Jefferson decided to build a bridge across the Missouri River, a bridge that would facilitate commerce between the capital city and communities like Columbia, Fulton, and Mexico, north of the river. Local residents formed a committee called the commercial club to raise $225,000 for the bridge project, which would extend Bolivar Street across the river to Cedar City. In 1895, workers began construction on the bridge, which featured a swivel to allow steamboats to pass. The bridge opened on February 17, 1896, as a toll bridge operated by Jefferson City Bridge & Transfer Company. In 1932, the third owner of the bridge—Capital City Highway Bridge Company—retired the debt and turned the span over to the state.
In 1955, the old bridge came down and a new bridge opened, averaging 9,200 vehicles per day. In 1991, a second bridge was added to carry northbound traffic and pedestrians and cyclists. Today both bridges carry a combined average of 50,000 vehicles per day.
to elect a single inductee to Cooperstown that year, for the first time ever. But, down the road in Columbus, Ohio, the brand-new Accounting Hall of Fame opened at The Ohio State University.
In Missouri, the disastrous 1951 flood killed twenty-eight people and caused nearly $1 billion in damages (in 1951 dollars; total damage would be $6.4 billion today). On July 17, President Truman surveyed the damage by airplane and declared the disaster “one of the worst this country has ever suffered from water.” Many Williams Romack farm clients were hit hard.
SERVICE
In the wake of the flooding, Lou Rackers joined the company.
Louis H. Rackers Jr. was born and raised in Jefferson City, graduating from Saint Peter High School in 1943. He served in the United States Navy during WWII from 1943 to 1946. Newly married to Louise Horton, Lou graduated cum laude from Saint Louis University in 1949 with a degree in accounting.
Lou was employed at Williams Romack in 1950 but was called back into service during the Korean War in 1951. He returned to the business in 1955, becoming a partner in 1961. Lou served both Columbia and Jefferson City offices until the 1970s, when he worked only in Jef ferson City.
Service was important to Lou, especially his work with Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, the Knights of Columbus Helias Council, and the Helias Catholic School Board. Lou’s impact on behalf of the Catholic community in Jefferson City cannot be overstated.
In 1952, the firm added two key CPAs whose names soon would appear on the company’s masthead, and one key administrative assistant who would devote fifty-four years to the company.
Thomas Johnson Payne was born February 9, 1920, in Columbia to Eva Johnson and Thomas Robnett Payne. He grew up in Columbia and graduated from Hickman High School. During World War II Tom was a captain in the Air Force, where he trained pilots and served in the Pacific Theater.
After the war Tom returned to Columbia and graduated from the University of Missouri–
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George Keepers. WK Archive.
Columbia School of Business and Public Administration. In 1948, he married his childhood sweetheart, Frances Taylor, known affectionately as “Tatie.” The newlyweds initially settled in Chicago, where he worked as a CPA for Arthur Young and she worked in advertising for Marshall Field & Company.
Tom and Tatie returned to their hometown of Columbia, and he joined the firm in 1952, where he became the office manager.
Like George Keepers, Tom kept very tight fiscal reins. “George Washington would scream when Tom grabbed ahold of a dollar bill,” David Rawlings laughed. (David would later serve the firm for many years as managing partner.)
Employees affectionately called Charles Edward Oliver the “old man.” Ed was born June 10, 1913, in Columbia. He grew up in the First Christian Church and graduated from Hickman High School. He served with the Marine Corps during World War II and married Erma Anderson on his birthday in 1951, shortly before joining the firm. As his partner George Keepers always encouraged, Ed became deeply involved in his community, a member of the VFW, American Legion, and Disabled American Veterans. Like the other partners, Ed would be instrumental in forming the Central Chapter of MOCPA in 1970.
“THE GLUE”
Jeanette Nieman grew up in Hartsburg, Missouri, and married Fritz Klemme of Hartsburg in November 1951. She had been working in Jefferson City at the Missouri Public Expenditure Survey, now called Taxpayers Research Institute of Missouri (TRIM), a part of Associated Industries of Missouri. At that time she was putting out mailings of the survey’s most recent publication, Five Years Under The New Missouri Constitution, by Martin Luther Faust, a professor at Mizzou. Her job was ending, and her supervisor recommended her to Paul Williams, who hired her on the spot.
Jeanette quickly became a trusted office organizer during income tax season, deftly handling hundreds of tax returns in various stages of readiness. George Keepers called her “Nettie.” She remembers when she first started at
THEN…
Williams Romack, if somebody needed a copy of a return, she had to handwrite the copy. She described the company’s first mimeograph copy machine. “It was wet. We had to hang the copies with clothespins to dry. Later we had a new copy machine which we had to keep in a dark room to develop the copies. Paul Williams would come in with his flashlight looking for a particular copy, always saying a few choice words,” she laughed.
The staff kept everything running, a fact not lost on the partners, who called the support staff “the glue.” Dorothy Strope. June Groner. Lawanda Proctor. Betty Fisher.
During tax season—called busy season by the staff—“the glue” often worked into the night, and occasionally overnight, organizing and collating tax returns to be ready for signatures the
next morning. The office always had a family feel. Nola Williams and Martha Romack often came in during busy season to help collate and send out tax returns.
Known for his networking as well as his precise accounting work, Williams had several farm clients and automobile dealership clients. He kept a cabin on Swan Lake where he would invite partners and clients to go duck hunting. “They never got out of the cabin,” Jeanette laughed.
Over his lifetime, Paul Williams loved working with people to solve problems, which is to say he loved politics. In 1952, he became a trusted advisor to Stuart Symington in his successful campaign for the United States Senate. Williams remained a close adviser to Symington during his campaigns for reelection. Paul even got involved
The Jefferson City Chamber of Commerce began raising money during the early 1950s to fund a Community Chest to fight diseases and sponsor various social service agencies. The Community Chest became the United Community Fund in 1954. Today it’s called The United Way of Central Missouri. The Chamber also was instrumental in building Charles Still Osteopathic Hospital (now Capital Region Medical Center) in 1951 and Memorial Hospital in 1959. AND NOW… “Our mission statement of ‘WK Helps’ refers to an attitude of service that goes well beyond just getting a job done. It means doing everything we can to positively impact our clients, our people, and our community.”
—Ryan Henry, CPA, Partner
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LEFT COLUMN, TOP: 1951. Christian College celebrated its centennial with a concert by alumna Jane Froman. The college graduated 111 students that spring. In June Columbia residents voted to ban the sale of liquor by the drink by a two-to-one margin. Columbia Missourian. MIDDLE: 1952. Ozark Air Lines began regular passenger service to Columbia. The first flight was to Springfield on September 4. In downtown Columbia, Rowe Carney of Rolla—inventor of a movie format called Rotoscope—bought the Tiger Hotel. General Dwight Eisenhower became president. Columbia raised bus fare to fifteen cents, a dime for children. Alton Ford occupied the building that became Ford’s Theater, later called the Fieldhouse. Iron streetlights bordered Broadway. KSMU. BOTTOM: 1954. The Columbia municipal golf course opened to the public. Coach John “Hi” Simmons and the MU baseball team won the NCAA national championship. The city’s footprint was six square miles encompassing four hotels, eight motels, 6,912 motor vehicles, eight public schools, one television station, and one radio station. iStock.
CENTER COLUMN: On September 22, 1954, a deadly prison riot broke out at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. The event is retold in the popular Missouri State Penitentiary tours. News Tribune (top) State Historical Society of Missouri (bottom). RIGHT COLUMN, TOP: 1956. In Jefferson City, Saint Peter High School closed its doors, and Helias High School first opened for the school year with 467 students taught by the Christian Brothers and School Sisters of Notre Dame. School Sisters of Notre Dame. 1957. The Big 7 Athletic Conference became known informally as the Big 8 when Oklahoma State University joined. OSU, however, didn’t play a league schedule in football until 1960, so most historical records categorize the 1957–59 football seasons as Big 7 years. The Athletic.
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in campaign operations for Harry Truman in Boone County. Apparently he continued to ignore George Keepers’ advice to stay neutral in political matters.
In 1953, Thomas Coleman Andrews became the first CPA to head the Internal Revenue Service. He would run for president in 1956 as a third-party candidate against Dwight Eisenhower. The Korean War truce went into effect on July 27, 1953. Soon, Lou Rackers would return home from the war and eventually rejoin the firm. That same year KOMU-TV went on the air as Mid-Missouri’s first television station. Columbia’s tax rate of $1.25 per $100 assessed valuation included a dollar for the general fund, twenty cents for bond retirement, and five cents for the library. Alarmingly that year, the city health officer noted a serious increase in the incidence of polio. In response to the polio outbreak, the city began distributing polio vaccines in schools to first, second, and third graders in 1954.
The firm’s Jefferson City office moved to 308 Monroe Street in 1955. At the same time a brandnew Missouri River bridge pointed the way up Highway 54 to Mid-Missouri’s second television station. KRCG-TV was owned by the Jefferson City News Tribune. The station’s call letters reflect the initials of the newspaper’s late publisher, Robert C. Goshorn, who died before realizing his vision of bringing a television station to the area.
The new bridge and the new television stations further accelerated Mid-Missouri’s economy. And the Williams Romack accounting business kept growing.
SHIFTING TRENDS
With improving highways and bridges, America’s preferred mode of travel was shift-
ing quickly from rail to the automobile. In 1955, the Missouri Public Service Commission denied the Wabash Railroad’s request to discontinue passenger service between Centralia and Columbia. Sadly, such requests would continue and eventually become successful. Meanwhile, on the streets and highways, Columbia police began using radar speed equipment. The city’s entire operating budget was $20,000, which today would barely cover radar guns in Columbia’s police car fleet.
The year 1956 witnessed an expansion in Columbia’s power, comfort, and shopping options. Various developers launched four separate proposals for shopping centers at Garth and Broadway, Pershing Road and Broadway, West Boulevard and Worley, and on Broadway just west of Clinkscales Road next to the drive-in theater. Columbia’s I-70 inner and outer loop construction began. Traffic lights were installed downtown. The municipal power plant opened on the business loop, and the municipal building became air conditioned. Williams Romack Company did work for both the city and municipal utilities.
In 1958, as a seven-mile segment of Interstate 70 opened to traffic, Paul Williams began a two-year term as chair of the MOCPA board. Throughout the company’s history, Williams-
Keepers has maintained a close working relationship with MOCPA.
At the end of the decade another World War II veteran, Darrell L. Chronister, joined the Jefferson City office, coming from the Missouri Department of Revenue Division of Taxation. A certified public accountant, he had also been an IRS agent. Known to family, friends, and clients as “DC,” Darrell was born in 1925 in Sikeston, Missouri. A graduate of Ellington High School, he served in the United States Navy during World War II, then graduated from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1951. He married Joan Gerling in 1984 in Jef ferson City.
The platoon of veterans who landed at Williams Romack would guide the firm through the next decade and beyond.
THEN… In 1954, the filing deadline for individual tax returns moved from March 15 to April 15. AND NOW… “As far as a busy career mixing with a busy home life, Williams-Keepers is definitely very flexible. I’m always able to participate in my kids’ school activities. Those are really encouraged.”
—Kristen Brown, CPA, Audit Manager
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1950s. Businesses such as Hays Hardware, J.J. Newberry Store, Midwest Loans, Dick Barnett’s, and Uptown Theater thrived in downtown Columbia. State Historical Society of Missour i.
1960s: ON THE MOVE
Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers grew the business during the turbulent 1960s.
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LEFT: Williams Keepers Oliver Payne and Rackers associate Mary Stotler pauses for a photo with firm partners (from left) George Keepers, Paul Williams and Ed Oliver in front of the firm’s Ash Street office in Columbia WK Archive.
Aftertwenty years with the company, R. W. Romack retired in 1960. Mr. Romack had been instrumental in helping build clientele. He helped preside over the company’s expansion into Jefferson City and Mexico. Just as important, he helped attract solid CPAs to the firm from The Greatest Generation.
Indeed, the Williams Romack Company had grown substantially with clients brought in by George Keepers, Ed Oliver, and Tom Payne. It was a natural move to expand the firm’s name to Williams Keepers Oliver & Payne. Yet even with the expanded name, each partner kept his own client list, while sharing a pool of capable office personnel.
Looking back over his thirty-six years in business, Paul Williams could be proud of the company he built. He still worked hard and maintained one steadfast rule: he demanded his personal clients file their tax returns at least a few days before April 15. One mid-April, University of Missouri head football coach Dan Devine—obviously a busy man—brought Paul his paperwork at the last minute. Williams sent him away. George Keepers finished the coach’s taxes.
At the beginning of the decade Columbia had expanded to eleven square miles. Its population had increased to 36,650. Jefferson City’s census remained steady at 28,228 residents. The 1960s in Jefferson City saw the construction of Memorial Hospital and the city’s development as a manufacturing center.
In 1961, Lou Rackers became a partner in the firm and assumed the role as chair of the Partner/Management Group. Lou would be partner-in-charge of the Jefferson City office for many years.
In 1962, Paul Williams and crew moved the firm’s Columbia business again, to 16 North Ninth Street, just across the alley from the old location. Jeanette Klemme remembers that the firm had outgrown the old upstairs office and moved downstairs across the alley.
In 1963, the first issue of the Journal of Accounting Research was published.
Meanwhile the city of Columbia continued its rapid expansion. In 1964, Columbia annexed 8.2 square miles. Two years later, Columbia annexed
another 23 square miles. By 1970 Columbia encompassed 41.7 square miles.
While Columbia experienced dramatic growth, the accounting firm continued to expand its business clientele. Even its name had become longer, adding Lou Rackers to the masthead: the firm became Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers.
VISION
George Keepers could see that the firm was outgrowing its current location. He had a vision to build a modern new building in the heart of central Columbia. In 1966, George made good on his vision, and the firm built a new Columbia headquarters at 105 East Ash Street. It was George Keepers’ bold move to place the building at this specific location. “George was very community minded,” said Mariel Liggett, who later would become the firm’s first female partner.
Eventually the firm built an addition, where the company occupied all three floors.
“The old building now looks very pedestrian and 1960ish,” recalled Bea Smith, the wife of former WK partner Stephen B. Smith. “But it was also interesting to think about the symbolism of the civic philosophy that led that generation of partners to dare to construct a new building in a part of town that they knew could use an economic boost.” Jeanette remembers that it was a great place to work. But occasionally the building would flood.
George Keepers was visionary. Yet it was widely known among his staffers that, although he was a great manager, George hated the process of billing his clients. Fellow partners would encourage him to catch up on past accounts receivable, even to the point of suggesting that paychecks would be suspended for anybody with a certain level of outstanding accounts receivable.
Over the years the firm experienced a growing rivalry between the Columbia and Jefferson City offices. For a while that rivalry enhanced the competitive spirit of both offices. But soon partners realized that a truly unified company would operate even more efficiently. Today that rivalry only exists when the partners and associates root for their local sports teams.
The Typewriter
Christopher Latham Sholes invented the first manual typewriter in 1868. He contracted with gunmaker Remington and Sons to introduce it to the public in 1874. A writer named Samuel Clemens bought a Remington typewriter that same year, and eventually he was the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript to a publisher (Life on the Mississippi, 1883), although he didn’t type it himself, preferring to dictate.
Thomas Edison invented the first electrically operated typing machine in 1872. His rudimentary printing wheel later became the ticker-tape printer. James Smathers introduced the electric typewriter as an office writing machine in 1920.
In 1961 IBM introduced the first commercially successful typewriter using a sphere-shaped typing element, eliminating the need for a movable paper carriage.
In 1965, Congress passed a law allowing CPAs to represent clients before the IRS. That year, two new publications appeared: The Abacus and Management Accounting.
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CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: 1961. President John F. Kennedy appointed Rex M. Whitton as Federal Highway Administrator of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), now part of the Federal Highway Administration. Jefferson City celebrated Whitton, former chief engineer of the Missouri Highway Department, with a parade and a key to the city. Restauranteur John Adcock gave Whitton the grand champion Cole County ham. And on August 18 of that year, the state dedicated the new Rex M. Whitton Expressway—a $7.6 million U.S. 50 expressway project through the heart of Jefferson City. Federal Highway Adminstration. 1966. Mid-Mo Mental Health Center opened. Christian College alumna Deborah Bryant became Miss America. And on October 7, 1966, the Hickman Kewpies defeated the Jefferson City Jays, snapping the Jays’ 71game winning streak, a national record at the time. Prior to that the Jays had defeated Hickman eight straight times by a combined score of 186–40. With the Kewpies’ dramatic win, the rivalry between the two cities only got hotter. Columbia Missourian. 1967. The University of Missouri Hospital and Clinics were completed. Across the street the Veterans Hospital was constructed from 1966 to 1972 at a cost of $15 million. Down the road, Rock Bridge State Park opened. MU HealthCare. 1968. Mid-Missouri entered the aeronautical modern age when Columbia Municipal Airport closed and Columbia Regional Airport opened, capable of landing jet aircraft. iStock. July 20, 1969. Mid-Missourians were glued to their television sets as they heard the words, “The Eagle has landed” on the moon. National Geographic.
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In 1966, the Dow Jones hit 1,000 points. Don Caldwell joined the firm in 1967. For many years he also served as Boone County Auditor while he was a partner with the firm.
In Jefferson City, the Central Trust Building had been the town’s only skyscraper until a new round hotel moved in. Designed by famed architect T. Y. Lin and built in 1967, the thirteen-story hotel began as a Holiday Inn in 1969. Only the state capitol is taller. When that new circular hotel opened, management called on Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers partner Darrell Chronister to handle its accounting needs.
In 1968, the National Committee on Governmental Accounting published an authoritative GAAP for state and local governments, called Government Accounting, Auditing, and Financial Reporting (GAAFR). The Tax Reform Act of 1968 changed the focus of income tax from economic incentives to social objectives.
The end of the decade saw the building of a concrete canopy to cover Columbia’s downtown sidewalks. Designed by Pon Chinn, the canopy was intended to give Columbia’s downtown the ambience of a mall.
Meanwhile, Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers had grown the business during the turbulent 1960s. From their new building in the heart of Columbia, the partners were poised to enter a new decade of growth, a decade in which they would attract a group of young CPAs who would become known as “The Gang of Eight.”
Congress Enacts the Alternative Minimum Tax
When the secretary of the treasury testified that 155 people with adjusted gross income above $200,000 paid zero federal income tax on their 1967 tax returns, Congress enacted the alternative minimum tax (AMT) in 1969, designed to prevent wealthy taxpayers from using loopholes to avoid paying taxes. But the AMT was not automatically updated for inflation. As a result, more middle-class taxpayers fell into the AMT category each year. For more than four decades Congress passed an annual patch to fix the AMT. Finally in 2013, Congress enacted a permanent patch to the AMT.
THEN… “It is a curious and noteworthy fact that the tremendous growth of the U.S. accounting profession in the postwar years has taken place almost unnoticed by most Americans,” T. A. Wise said in a 1960 Fortune magazine article, “The Auditors Have Arrived.” This article introduced the term, “the Big Eight.”
AND NOW… “WK’s greatest attributes are our people, past and present. Generations of hard work and community involvement have earned us a well-respected position in the community. We have a smart and helpful crew, continuing that tradition today.”
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—Jessica Lehmen, CPA, Partner
1970s: SETTING THE TABLE FOR CHANGE
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Prior to this point 90 percent of the firm’s business focused on taxes. But with the infusion of new talent came new ideas.
ABOVE: Late 1970s. Partners gather at the Columbia Country Club for a leadership meeting. Front row (from left): Tom Payne, John Rucker, Don Caldwell. Back Row (from left): Don Decker, Lou Rackers , Jim Weber, David Rawlings, George Keepers. WK Archive.
The1970s continued the dramaic changes in Columbia. The city population had reached almost 60,000, nearly doubling Jefferson City’s relatively stable population of 32,407.
The decade would see Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers grow as well, merging with practices in Rolla and Lebanon, opening a Moberly office, and acquiring a Fulton practice.
During this time Paul Williams reorganized the group of CPAs, including Columbia partners Williams, Keepers, Oliver, and Payne, and Lou Rackers in Jefferson City. Each of those CPAs retained his own practice, still individual accountants sharing a central staff. That business model would slowly evolve over the next three decades.
The changes began with key new hires.
Harry Otto graduated from the University of Missouri in 1969 and a week later went to work for the firm. He interviewed with George Keepers. Harry remembers when he began with the firm, Keepers told him to go see Elmo Cleek. Cleek helped initiate Harry by playing the role of a tough customer. “You think you can handle my business finances?”
Harry did.
Back then the firm’s auditing work still was performed manually, including typing carbon copies. Answering machines had yet to be invented, and George Keepers’ left pocket was always full of unanswered telephone messages, according to well-placed sources.
In the early 1970s, Harry Otto recalls, each accountant had a ten-key adding machine, and they shared one Smith Corona Marchant-I calculator. “When typing tax forms, if you made a mistake, you started over with a new form.”
Harry worked two hundred hours in the last two weeks of his first tax season. He remembers the Ash Street location had a vault and a library. For years during busy season, the firm ritually mailed returns to Saint Louis for processing. When the company installed its first computer, accountants mailed the punch cards to Saint Louis for processing. Later the firm sent the punch cards by plane to Saint Louis. Soon after, Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers launched Columbia EDP, a com-
puter processing company located in the firm’s basement. From that point forward, tax forms were processed through Columbia EDP. From the second-floor bullpen of the firm’s office on Ash Street, Harry Otto vividly recalls hearing the giant mainframe computers whirring downstairs, where Columbia EDP cleared checks all night for banks.
Harry eventually left the firm to work for the Department of Revenue. “But I didn’t burn any bridges.” He returned to work in the firm’s Jefferson City office in 1976.
In 1971, the Missouri Society of CPAs welcomed a new chapter—the Central Chapter became the fifth chapter of the society, with strong support from Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers, whose members would play active roles in the organization. Statewide, by the mid-1970s, MOCPA had grown to more than two thousand CPA members and eventually would feature a second member of the firm to chair the state organization.
Even as Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers kept growing, the business always had a family feel, but in 1971 partners’ spouses stopped doing filing, one small indication that the company was evolving from a local family business into a regional accounting firm.
There were other signs of growth. In 1972, the company built its Jefferson City office at 107 Adams Street. The modern brick, glass, and concrete structure stood two stories and offered the staff more space.
Along with the new building came new technology. A single new copy machine sat in the office bullpen. It used rolls of shiny paper, Harry Otto remembers, one of the first copiers sold by client Hallie Gibbs.
Another positive impact on the firm occurred in 1972 with the hiring of David Rawlings. David grew up in Marshall, Missouri, and graduated from the University of Missouri with degrees in both accountancy and law, a rare combination that would serve the firm well. Eventually the firm would hire more professionals with both accountancy and law degrees.
When he joined the company, Rawlings was fresh out of the military, having served in Vietnam as a U.S. Army captain.
THEN… In 1972, the AICPA rescinded its fifty-yearold ban on advertising AND NOW…“Williams-Keepers has so many different types of clients, you really have an opportunity to touch a lot of different projects. It’s really fun to look back and see how much my confidence has grown. Some projects that I wouldn’t have known how to handle when I first started, I’m now able to turn around with confidence and even help younger staff with the same project.”
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—Caroline Boeger, CPA, Tax Supervisor
Leaving that wartime experience behind, David adjusted to new challenges as a civilian, and he learned the meaning of two new terms: “tax season” and “busy season.”
With a military background, David Rawlings was accustomed to hard work and long hours. He also appreciated the firm’s dedication to community. George Keepers was a Rotarian and encouraged fellow employees to join civic organizations. David became a Kiwanian and also worked with 4-H and United Cerebral Palsy.
Rawlings helped refine the Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers business model. He had a keen eye for management. “When I joined the firm,” David said, “I noticed the employee punch clock was in the basement. There was a lot of wasted time going downstairs to punch in and punch out.” David Rawlings eliminated the punch clock.
The business was growing. When David joined the firm, there were eighteen employees
at the Columbia location, five in Jefferson City, and two in Mexico. David eventually would become the firmwide managing partner.
The business couldn’t have been so successful without key personnel.
Rawlings remembers Mary Stotler—the firm’s checker—coming into his office, the checker tape flowing out of her adding machine and trailing out the door. He praises Kay Semon as one of the firm’s key problem solvers, especially in information technology. “If something went wrong, she would make sure it never happened again.” Kay worked for the firm for forty years before retiring in 2022.
Ron Callis and John Rucker also joined the firm in 1972. Callis graduated from the University of Missouri in 1969 and had recently become a CPA when he joined Rawlings in the Columbia office. During his tenure, Ron was considered the firm’s data processing troubleshooter. He later established a satellite
office in Moberly, which he bought in 1982 as the company began gravitating toward a onefirm concept.
“What I like about accounting is the variety,” said John Rucker, who joined the Jefferson City office at 107 Adams Street and served twelve years before opening his own practice at the Lake of the Ozarks and Jef ferson City.
BREAKING THE G LASS CEILING
Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers employed several females on the accounting staff, and of course, the firm was held together by “the glue,” as the partners called the predominantly female administrative staff. But there were no female CPAs until the firm welcomed Mariel Liggett in 1973.
Mariel grew up in Indiana with six brothers, five of them older. The family moved to Kansas City when she was a sophomore in high school. Five older brothers and a move during high school gave her the ability to navigate a male-dominated profession. She graduated from Mizzou in 1971 with a degree in accounting and a 4.0 grade point average. “I even got an A in bowling,” Mariel laughed. At graduation she wasn’t sure she wanted to be an accountant.
“Actually, I owe it all to my brother Tom,” she said in an interview with COMO Magazine. “We were both attending college, and he was in an accounting class and recommended I take a course in accounting because I liked math so much. I was all set to be a teacher, so I declined. Tom persisted, so finally I gave in and signed up for Introductory Accounting. I loved it and immediately changed my major to accounting.”
At the time, female accountants—especially female CPAs—were rare. There were only a few other female accounting majors in Mariel’s Mizzou accounting classes. Even with her degree in accounting, she was set to begin work on her master’s degree in education. In the meantime, Big Eight accounting firm Arthur Andersen in Kansas City recruited her. Eventually she took a leave of absence from Arthur Andersen to work on her master’s at Mizzou. That’s when she and her husband, George, agreed they would like to live in Columbia. She interviewed with Williams
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1973. Firm partners Ed Oliver, David Rawlings, Tom Payne, Paul Williams, George Keepers and Don Caldwell. WK Archive.
Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers and joined the firm in 1973.
Mariel remembers interviewing with George Keepers. She told him she wanted to work in the tax division. He agreed but soon assigned her to an audit. She was surprised. “I thought I was in the tax department.”
“You are, during tax season,” Keepers responded.
Mariel has high praise for the partnership’s handling of her role. “I was the first female professional hired by the firm. But I never thought it was an issue because George Keepers and Tom Payne made it a point to not make that an issue. Instead, they treated me like all the other staff members, always equally in all areas. It was a non-issue for them.”
She recalls telling Keepers at one point, “I’m the only female professional here.”
“So what?” Keepers responded, assuring her that he only saw a good CPA, not a male or female.
“George was so well respected and well-liked by his clients. He was always open door, he and Tom Payne both. Their offices were side by side in the Ash building.”
Mariel became the first female partner in 1976.
abused children and women. One of her most painful memories came when the organization had to close the boys’ home. The kids were understandably upset. When Mariel talked to the workers at the boys’ house, the mentors were not as concerned about losing their jobs as they were about their charges: “What about the boys?” Instead of turning the boys out onto the street, Mariel enlisted Boys and Girls Town, forming a partnership in Columbia that still exists today. She serves on the advisory board.
The women’s center is now called True North.
She watched another favorite program grow and flourish: SEED Success sets up 529 accounts for Columbia children K–12. SEED stands for Student Educational and Economic Development. The program works with youth and families to “seed” and grow College/Career Incentive Savings Accounts (CISA). The accounts are bolstered with matching funds and allow young recipients to have a financial foundation when they reach college age and adulthood. SEED has funded nearly six hundred college/career accounts for K–12 students in Boone County and is on track for hundreds more.
In 1973, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) was created, a result of demands by the SEC and Congress for more reliable and comparable financial reporting. The FASB and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) are now two of the main organizations responsible for establishing generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) in the U.S. For the first time, the American Institute of Accountants (now AICPA) ceded accounting standards authority to a body outside the organized accounting profession.
NEW IDEAS
In 1974, the firm welcomed Stephen B. Smith, who arrived from Arthur Andersen in Saint Louis.
work and studies. He graduated in 1968 with a business degree and subsequently received the Missouri Gold Medal Award for the highest grade among the 750 individuals seated for the CPA examination.
As one of the Big Eight accounting firms in the nation, Arthur Andersen exposed young Stephen to the patina of big-city accounting firms, according to his wife Bea. After graduation he went to work full time for Arthur Andersen, eventually leaving to become president of a manufacturing company. But a tornado wiped out the company.
At that point Arthur Andersen enlisted Stephen, who spoke several languages, to work for the company in Switzerland. He was all set to go. But when Stephen came back to Columbia to attend a class reunion at Hickman High School, George Keepers and Ed Oliver were eagerly waiting, intent on hiring this promising young professional. They already had talked to Stephen’s mom. Before their meeting with him, Stephen wasn’t very interested in coming back to a hometown accounting firm. But the trio hit it off in a big way, and Stephen saw an opportunity for great things with WK. He knew he could bring elements of the Big Eight accounting firm mindset to this small but mighty Mid-Missouri accounting firm.
Just as important, Stephen realized that back in his hometown, with this quality local firm, he would have the ability to “breathe.” Coming back to Columbia, he looked forward to engaging in entrepreneurship, something he would not be able to do with a major national accounting firm.
Steve became a member-owner in 1976, along with Mariel Liggett. “Dave, Steve, and I worked together a lot. We had quite a few clients together. We were all left-handed,” Mariel said with a smile.
GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY
George encouraged Mariel, along with all the firm’s employees, to “give back to the community that gives so much to you.” Mariel took that advice to heart, working with the Mid-Missouri Food Bank early on. But her heart belonged to a program called the Front Door in Columbia, for
In the mid-1960s Stephen had entered the University of Missouri, combining his collegiate work with a full-time job to help his mother after his father died suddenly. Arthur Andersen hired him on a special basis in their Saint Louis office during his junior year, and he commuted between Columbia and Saint Louis, balancing
Already the new cadre of CPAs was moving toward a grand new model, one that would launch the company’s accountants into specific areas of expertise. And they all liked the one-firm concept. They looked for ways to grow the company’s footprint, to reimage the business from small market ideas to working among the elite national firms.
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1976. Mariel Liggett became the f irst female par tner in the firm’s history. WK Archive.
Pension Reform
In 1875, the American Express Company established the first private pension plan in the United States, and, shortly thereafter, utilities, banking, and manufacturing companies also began to provide pensions. Most of the early pension plans were defined benefit plans that paid workers a specific monthly benefit at retirement, funded entirely by employers. Until 1974, there was little or no protection for pensions. One of the most shocking incidents of workers losing their retirement benefits occurred in 1963 when Studebaker terminated its employee pension plan, and more than four thousand auto workers at its automobile plant in South Bend, Indiana, lost some or all of their promised pension plan benefits. Workers everywhere were in jeopardy of losing their pensions when companies went out of business, and there was nowhere they could turn for help.
In 1974, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the foundation for a sound and workable pension insurance program that guaranteed workers’ benefits in private pension plans. President Gerald R. Ford signed ERISA into law, which established the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). “Under this law,” President Ford remarked, “the men and women of our labor force will have much more clearly defined rights to pension funds and greater assurances that retirement dollars will be there when they are needed.”
The Kline-Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act was enacted on December 16, 2014. In Kline-Miller, Congress established a new process for multiemployer pension plans to propose a temporary or permanent reduction of pension benefits if the plan is projected to run out of money.
OVERHAULING PENSION PLANS
One of the firm’s big changes occurred when Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), the federal law that sets minimum standards for most voluntarily established retirement and health plans in private industry. The goal was to provide protection for workers in these plans.
Prior to the new law, pensions and retirement income basically operated under the rules of the Wild West. There were few regulations. Consequently, when Congress tightened the rules many executors in the pension industry referred to ERISA as “Every Rotten Idea Since Adam.” Yet companies and employees loved the safeguards and the new programs such as profit sharing.
Seeing these monumental changes, Mariel Liggett stepped up and quickly became an expert in the nuances of the more restrictive ERISA. She rewrote all of her clients’ plans to meet ERISA requirements to provide participants with plan information, features, and funding.
CHANGES
The year 1975 saw some big changes on the WK roster. Ed Oliver retired after twenty-three years with the firm, content that he had helped hire and train a platoon of sharp young CPAs to carry on the company’s legacy. Mike Odelehr joined the company’s Jefferson City office. Mike took an active role in the community as a member of Host Lions. And he still worked with his alma mater, Lincoln University, until he retired in 2018.
In 1976, the century-old Maplewood Home opened as a historic house and museum. Fifty miles northeast in Audrain County, Don Decker, who in 1965 had come from Deloitte in Saint Louis to the A. P. Green Company in Mexico, joined the Mexico office of Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers. Decker was admitted as a partner in the firm. “I don’t believe anybody else had ever joined the firm straightaway as a partner,” Don recalls. It was a perfect fit: Ed Oliver had just retired, and the Mexico office did not have a partner. So the firm gladly met Decker’s stipulation that he be admitted as a partner. At about the same time the Mexico office moved to 222 East Jackson.
“On my first day we had a partners’ meeting at the Lake of the Ozarks,” Decker recalls. “Lou Rackers and Tom Payne had a property down there. It was in January. I’m the newbie and I walk in and these guys are working on calculators, with big wide green bar paper. They were doing the firm’s books for the year.”
It’s not something Don would have seen during his days at the buttoned-down A.P. Green, “an international company where we got computerized consolidated financial statements on the seventh working day of every month.”
Don, a Mizzou grad, quickly felt at home in this Mid-Missouri accounting firm. And he admired George Keepers’ work ethic. “I’d be in the office at six o’clock in the morning, and if I ran into a problem I’d call the Columbia office. George would answer the phone.”
Don also remembers Paul Williams. “I would come to the Columbia office,” Don said, “and occasionally I would see Paul in the office. He would come by to pick up his retirement check. A hundred dollars a month.
“When you think about company assets, you think about goodwill. You think about Paul and George, and Lou Rackers—those names were powerful.”
The same year Don Decker came on board, Jefferson City native Sid Dulle joined the firm. A graduate of Lincoln University, Sid worked as an audit partner until 1989, when he opened his own practice.
At this point in the story it becomes obvious that several local accounting firms with names you know and trust came out of Williams
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The ERISA Act, signed President Gerald Ford in 1974, was jokingly referred to as “Every Rotten Idea Since Adam” by business leaders. US Department of Labor.
CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: 1971. A new Columbia Public Library rose at Garth and Broadway. On December 30, 1972, a human book brigade passed the collection of books from the old Columbia Public Library at Seventh and Broadway to the new library. By the year 2000 a new library would stand on the spot. Daniel Boone Regional Library. 1970s. In Jefferson City demolition crews tore down the old Central Hotel to present a better view of the state capitol. Missouri State Historical Society. 1973. As the brand-new Biscayne Mall sprawled on the western edge of Columbia off Stadium Drive, on the south edge of town Rock Bridge High School opened. It was the second centrally air-conditioned school built in Columbia after Oakland Junior High School. Cinema Tour. 1973. Susan Wooderson became Columbia’s first female police officer. Shakespeare’s Pizza opened at Ninth and Elm Streets, on the site of old Poor Richard’s across from J-School. University of Missouri. 1974. Columbia Regional Hospital opened. The fad of streaking hit the Mizzou campus and, for some reason, the eclectic Interstate Pancake Howse. St. Louis Post Dispatch.
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Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers. Russ Starr, who later would join the firm and eventually serve as managing partner, adds perspective with this revelation: “For every person who left WK and established their own accounting firm, or went to another accounting firm, there were ten who went to Emery Sapp and the Landrum Company and Central Bank and others. They became really valuable members of the financial leadership of companies.”
SAYING GOODBYE
In a short span, the firm would say farewell to two members of the WK family. James Monroe Weber died unexpectedly on March 19, 1978. He was fifty-two, in the prime of his life, a dynamic, beloved member of the community and a longtime partner at Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers. At the time of his death, Jim was a district governor-elect for Lions Club International. He was a member of the American Legion, the VFW, and the Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus. Jim served as a lay minister and member of the Holy Name of Saint Joseph Cathedral. He was an active supporter of Babe Ruth Baseball, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and Jefferson City park board programs.
Thirteen days later, on April 1, 1978, Arminda “Minda” Williams, mother of Paul Williams, died and was laid to rest in Appleton City. She was ninety-nine. Her life had seen tragedy, but she also saw her son Paul establish a strong regional accounting firm.
That same year the MKT Railroad abandoned its rail line from McBaine to Columbia. President Jimmy Carter visited Columbia and spoke to the Missouri Farmers Association. Muriel Battle became the city’s first African American principal, at West Junior High School. And another Stephen Smith—Stephen C. Smith—joined the team. What are the odds?
Stephen C. Smith shares his Norfolk, Nebraska, roots with an American icon: “I never met Johnny Carson, but Johnny and I had the same English teacher. He even had her on The Tonight Show a couple of times.”
Steve received his accountancy degree from the University of Nebraska. A United States
Army veteran, Steve came to WK from Snyder, Grant and Muehling in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he had worked for four years preparing financial statements and performing other duties. Steve and his wife, Pat, wanted to move to a college town. Pat was looking for a good journalism school. Columbia made sense. He remembers he got a phone book from the Columbia Public Library to see which accounting firm had the most names. His research led him to Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers, and the first person the receptionist introduced him to was Stephen B. Smith. “Well, the firm probably didn’t want another Steve Smith to confuse things,” he laughed. “But they hired me, and I went to work in December 1977.”
Steve got right to work on clients including Riback Supply and B. D. Simon. He remembers working with Marty Riback to bolster and enhance the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.
It was early 1978 when Steve first began working on a Columbia College audit. He enjoyed addressing the financial issues of a venerable Columbia institution. “When I presented the audit,” board member B. D. Simon said, “he did a good job for us.” From that point, Steve began specializing in auditing colleges and universities.
Steve’s expertise and insight, especially in the audit business, would make him a valuable member of the Gang of Eight.
Prior to this point 90 percent of the firm’s business focused on taxes. But with the infusion of new talent came new ideas. The company was evolving from a collection of individual CPAs to a universe of service. As David Rawlings, Mariel Liggett, Harry Otto, and the two Stephen Smiths presided over big changes, the company gained momentum toward becoming a multiple-service firm.
Gradually at first, and increasingly, members began to specialize in specific areas of accounting and financial management. With the hiring of Stephen C. Smith, the shift to specialization was well under way. Stephen B. Smith was evolving into an expert in forensic accounting litigation, increasingly in demand as a tax expert. In court there are two types of witnesses: fact witnesses and expert witnesses. Stephen B. Smith
was considered one of the nation’s preeminent expert accounting witnesses and was called many times to testify at trials, and even to Congress. He also became an expert in business valuation and lost profits.
Meanwhile, Stephen C. Smith shored up the audit practice. Mariel Liggett had become the recognized expert on large and small company retirement programs. Darrell Chronister became a go-to expert with colleges and universities, and he had many agricultural clients as well.
David Rawlings began doing more estate planning. John Sheehan—who later would join the firm and Rawlings in providing estate planning—reports that WK became the leading CPA firm in Mid-Missouri to perform statewide association work.
As the firm increased its focus on business valuations and consulting, WK accountants executed business functions like payroll and accounting for more and more companies who wanted to outsource and save overhead.
Splitting out duties helped partners become experts in their chosen pursuits. But it had another benefit: Specialization helped partners get unvarnished answers from one another about specific business situations. Those interconnected insights were value-added benefits to customers.
As the decade ended, Columbia annexation increased the city’s size to 41.54 square miles. The Wabash Station was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Late one afternoon in the middle of tax season in 1980 George Keepers approached Jeanette Klemme and said, “Nettie, I don’t think I’ll come in tomorrow.” He gave her a hug.
The following morning, March 9, 1980, news came that George Keepers had died.
Heartbroken, his WK family could only hold on to memories of the man who had given them so much. There’s a reason Mariel Liggett called him “my father away from home.”
His family buried George at Memorial Park Cemetery in Columbia.
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Don Decker
Mariel Liggett
Harry Otto
David Rawlings
John Sheehan
Stephen B. Smith
Stephen C. Smith
Russ Starr
1980s: MOMENTOUS CHANGES
During the 1980s the firm was guided by increasingly strong leadership, the nucleus of key CPA partners who became known as the Gang of Eight.
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LEFT: WK’s Gang of Eight. WK Archive.
were conducted with the use of many ledger sheets of paper and a black binder. WK has also improved at promoting a work/life balance. When I first started at WK, it was nothing to work from 7:30 a.m. until midnight or later during the busy season.
overtime hours,
Itwas a decade that began with a tearful farewell to George Keepers.
As his coworkers gathered at the Ash Street headquarters that George built—one block from the Frederick Douglass School, newly added to the National Register of Historic Places—they soon would become part of events inside and outside the firm that would bring significant changes to the business Paul Williams built.
The 1980 census showed Columbia’s population at 62,061. Jefferson City’s population remained stable at 33,619.
That year the firm welcomed Emil Ortmeyer as the newest CPA. Emil grew up in Westphalia and graduated from Fatima High School and Lincoln University. He worked for a decade at the Jefferson City office before beginning his own practice in Jef ferson City.
During the 1980s the firm was guided by increasingly strong leadership, the nucleus of key CPA partners who became known as the Gang of Eight: David Rawlings, Stephen B. Smith, Stephen C. Smith, Mariel Liggett, Harry Otto, Russ Starr (who joined in 1982), Don Decker, and John Sheehan (who joined in 1989). The group presided over a period of growth, not only in size of the company but in breadth of services.
The decade saw the firm grow its consulting and business valuations. It attracted more quality CPAs. And more key adjustments would encourage the firm’s move into specialization.
According to Troy Norton, “The firm had grown, but in essence we still functioned as many separate practices under one roof with shared staff. The Gang of Eight realized that to compete with
the bigger firms, the firm needed to specialize even more in specific industries. So we accelerated developing our industry specialization. We went from everybody trying to do everything,
THEN AND NOW…Technology of course would have to be the biggest evolution. When I started at WK in Jefferson City, there were no personal computers. Tax information was manually entered onto input pages and then keyed in. Audits
We still work
but the expected number of hours is much more manageable, and the firm allows alternative work schedules.”
—Kathy Graessle, CPA, Partner
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Late 1980s. Members of the firm’s leadership team pose for a group photo. (Front row, from left) Stephen B. Smith, David Rawlings, Harry Otto, Don Decker. (Back row, from left) Mariel Liggett, Stephen C. Smith, Russ Starr, Jennifer DuPont, Darrell Chronister, Emil Ortmeyer, John Sheehan. WK Archive
each being a generalist, to people focusing on specific industries, whether it be banks or contractors or colleges and universities or healthcare or construction.”
It was the beginning of the movement toward a one-firm concept. The firm soon would undergo a peer review that would accelerate consolidation into one firm.
In the meantime, another key accelerant in the firm’s growth was technology. And technology would lead to networking.
Years before the technological revolution gained widespread momentum, Ken Lange joined WK in 1980. His first job was a general document-processing position. Eventually he became the firm’s director of information technology. Ken’s steady guidance for more than forty years kept WK at the leading edge of innovations in the IT field.
THE LEADING EDGE
The timing was perfect to hire Ken Lange. Within the next year, WK’s individual CPAs with separate practices started on the road to organizing into a more cohesive firm. They continued to share staff, but as they specialized they also began to share expertise.
Facilitating all of these moves was the firm’s evolution into networking, data sharing, and the elec tronic age.
The decade saw dramatic changes in the way tax forms were processed. “When I first started at the firm we were ‘Purolating,’” said Ken, who retired in 2023, after 43 years of service. “That was the courier service at the time. We were Purolating paper documents back and forth every day.”
SOUNDING AN ALARM
Early in the decade Bob McKay in the Rolla office suggested Williams-Keepers join an accounting association. WK chose the influential peer group known then as Associated Regional Accounting Firms (ARAF). ARAF is now known as Allinial Global.
An ARAF member profile described the company:
“Admitted to ARAF in May 1981, WilliamsKeepers-Oliver-Payne & Rackers brings to the
association considerable experience with nonprofit organizations, serving 180 trade associations and lobby groups. Their six offices are located in Jefferson City, Columbia, Mexico, Moberly, Lebanon and Rolla. They have 13 partners and a total staff of 84. Founded in Columbia in 1923, the firm is the largest in the area.
“The Jefferson City office serves industrial, governmental and nonprofit organizations. Columbia is the home of the University of Missouri and two other colleges which the firm audits. That office also audits several banks and savings and loan associations and several insurance companies. Williams-Keepers also serves manufacturers and distributors, municipalities and others. The mix of services is approximately 45% tax, 45% accounting and auditing services and 10% management advisor y services.
“The firm has an IBM System/34 which processes all individual income tax returns and all financial statements. They own four buildings, renting some space out for offices. WilliamsKeepers is directed by a management committee composed of Louis H. Rackers, Donald W. Caldwell, Darrell L. Chronister and David L. Rawlings. All partners are members of the AICPA and the MOCPA.”
As a new ARAF member, the firm was required within a year of joining to undergo review by a peer panel. The review covered operations and the audit practice.
The company got a wakeup call. The review team sat down with all the firm’s partners and verbally shared their findings. The panel did not mince words. ARAF told the firm to centralize management and step up its audit procedures. One retired partner vividly recalls a “Come to Jesus” meeting of the partners after the ARAF evaluation.
The issue was not the capabilities of the existing partners and CPAs. Rather, ARAF suggested that the firm address its growing pains, tighten its audit processes, and entertain a pivot from a relatively small collection of CPAs with their own individual clients, several profit centers, and a shared staff, to a modern plan with merged profit centers, and eventually a support system of managers to handle administrative tasks such
as human resources, billing, and internal financial operations.
A ONE- FIRM CONCEPT
Always eager to improve the business, the firm’s partners studied the ARAF recommendations and responded to the challenge by beginning the evolution from a small accounting firm to a well-connected regional powerhouse. Stephen C. Smith brought the company’s audit procedures to professional standards. The partners installed a management committee, and members chose David Rawlings to become the firmwide managing partner.
David’s management style was firm but fair. He became comfortable with delegating projects.
Around the same time, Stephen B. Smith created a capital equalization plan to merge profit centers. Smith and Rawlings worked together to implement the plan, eliminating separate profit centers in Columbia, Jefferson City, Mexico, and the satellite offices. “It took a while to work through the idea that we really were going to consolidate,” Don Decker said.
Tax Reform Act of 1986
Congress lowered the highest tax rate for ordinary income from 50 percent to 28 percent, raised the tax rate on long-term capital gains, and raised the lowest tax rate from 11 percent to 15 percent. This was the first time in U.S. income tax history that the top tax rate was lowered and the bottom rate was increased at the same time. The act also eliminated certain loopholes and tax shelters, and expanded the Alternative Minimum Tax. For the first time people claiming children as dependents were required to provide Social Security numbers for each child on their tax returns. The act also increased the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction to stimulate homeownership.
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The transition would take a few years because of the complexity of the profit center issue, but WK had begun in earnest the evolution to a onefirm concept.
Not all the satellite office partners bought into the one-firm concept. Presented with the option of signing a single partnership agreement or remaining independent, Ron Callis bought the Moberly office, Robert McKay bought the Rolla office, and Dan Waterman bought the Lebanon office.
For decades larger companies had bid to buy WK, an attractive acquisition with a solid regional foundation. The partners always resisted such offers. But eventually as the Gang of Eight aged toward retirement, the prospect of selling to a larger owner became more intriguing.
Even as the firm continued specialization of industries, one partner brought back a query from a larger firm, checking if WK wanted to sell. The WK partners eschewed the offer, believing they could compete with larger firms. And they did not want to give up local control.
The firm’s members made a course-changing decision: having rejected selling the company, they planned to attract new CPAs who could evolve into future partners. “If you don’t plan for succession, the risk of takeover goes way up,” Don Decker noted.
NEW FACES AND A NEW NAME
Russ Starr came to the Columbia office in 1982. It was a homecoming, since Russ graduated in 1973 from the University of Missouri with a bachelor of science degree in accounting.
After graduating from Mizzou, Russ began his first job at Baird Kurtz & Dobson in Springfield. He had been there for ten years on a solid career track, but he had always wanted to raise his family in Columbia.
“I knew Harry Otto. We both grew up in Linn, Missouri,” Russ explained. “One day I told my wife I’m just gonna drive up and talk to Harry and see what opportunities might be around Mid-Missouri.” Harry said the firm was not hiring, but he phoned David Rawlings to arrange an interview. Dave was skeptical at hiring an individual with ten years of experience.
Russ responded, “Well, Dave, we’ve made the family decision to be in Columbia. My profession is public accounting. I wanted to come to you first because you’re the biggest, most prestigious firm in Columbia. That’s where I want to be. But regardless, I will be in Columbia working either for you or a competitor.”
By the end of the meeting Dave and Stephen B. Smith made an offer. “Dave embellishes the story,” Russ laughed. “Dave says, ‘Russ wouldn’t leave my office until I said yes.’”
Russ succeeded David Rawlings as managing partner and continued to guide the company in its work in specialized industries.
At the suggestion of Don Decker and others, in 1983 the company reorganized with the name Williams-Keepers. That same year Dottie Bemboom joined the support staff as a parttime checker. (She later would serve as the firm’s office administrator). “When I started,” Dottie remembers, “the name was Williams Keepers Oliver Payne & Rackers. Every time we answered the phone we had to say that. It was like, ‘Oh my, that’s an issue of time management.’”
In 1983, the accounting profession took a great step forward. In the late seventies and early eighties, efforts began to require Missouri CPAs to complete forty hours of continuing professional education each year. It took years to get this bill through the Missouri General Assembly, and it finally became law in 1983.
In 1984, the Single Audit Act required a single comprehensive audit for state and local
governments that receive federal money. The AICPA and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy published the first joint model bill to regulate the practice of public accounting. The Governmental Accounting Standards Board replaced the National Council on Government Accounting.
Around the same time, the firm began building a computer network. The process started with one PC, and eventually, in 1984, each Columbia partner bought an IBM 8088 Computer with a monochromatic monitor and a dot matrix printer.
NETWORKING
Ken Lange recalls the evolution toward a firmwide computer network. “We didn’t start networking until we got an IBM PC. Stephen B. Smith was an IBM PC fanatic. So we got the little PC in a gray rectangular steel box with a big floppy drive in the front. The monitor was a big square tube TV with the screen as big as a laptop today. We put it in the same room as Stephen B. Everybody had to sign up for time to use it. Then we added a second one, and a year or two later networking really took off and we installed about twenty PCs wired together with coaxial cable to a terminal at the end.”
Rudimentary as it seems now, WK’s emergence into computer networking helped solidify the one-firm concept.
In 1984, the Missouri Society of CPAs grew to five thousand members on its seventy-fifth anniversary. It had come a long way since its beginning early in the 20th century when there were less than 100 individual members of the organization.
FAREWELL TO THE FOUNDING FAMILY
The mid-80s bore sad news for the WK family. Nola Williams, dear wife of WK founder Paul Williams, died in July 1985. They had been married fifty-five years. One year later Paul died and was laid to rest beside Nola in Columbia’s Memorial Park Cemetery.
But there was also positive news within the walls of WK: the Jefferson City office added CPAs Kathy Graessle, Debra Mathes, and John Vaclavek.
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Prior to moving to its current Columbia location in 2007, WK’s office was located at 105 East Ash Street for more than 40 years. WK Archive.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: 1981. Columbia voters narrowly approved a beverage container deposit, making Columbia the nation’s first municipality to enact such a law. Columbia Missourian. 1982. Columbia in the national spotlight. In January the University of Missouri men’s basketball team became the number one ranked team in the nation. Columbia’s container deposit went into effect, a nickel per can or bottle. The year saw a pair of demolitions. In Columbia the Tiger Club was demolished on the corner of Business Loop and Broadway. And Jefferson City’s historic old city jail was demolished. Columbia Missourian. 1983. A momentous year in Mid-Missouri. The Callaway Nuclear Plant went online. Summertime saw the old courthouse columns at the north end of Eighth Street crowned with electric light globes. In downtown Jefferson City, the John G. Christy Municipal Building opened. On the west edge of town, the Missouri Department of Conservation built the Runge Nature Center. Missouri Department of Conservation. 1984. Columbia hosted the inaugural Show-Me State Games featuring six hundred participants. These are now the largest state games in the nation. Show Me State Games. 1989. Fran’s Restaurant became Broadway Diner. The New Boone County Museum was completed. The Iron Curtain fell in June, and in that same month University of Missouri physicians performed the hospital’s first heart transplant. Columbia Missourian.
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Born and raised in Central Missouri, Kathy Graessle graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in accounting. “Truthfully, I applied at WK because there was a potential opening and I needed a job since I was graduating from college. At the time, I was not very interested in working for the state, and this seemed a good option, although I swore in my tax class in college that I was never going to work in public accounting! I interviewed with Lou Rackers, he offered me a job, and I started on January 3 after graduating in December. During my first busy season, I fell in love with tax and accounting services work.”
Debra Mathes grew up in Putnam County in north Missouri. She graduated from Truman State University School of Business with an accounting degree, and joined Williams-Keepers in the Jefferson City office. She covered ERISA in Jefferson City until she moved to the Columbia office, and she joined the Williams-Keepers ownership group in 2001. Debra retired in 2018 after thirty-six years at WK.
In 1986, John P. Vaclavek joined the firm, training with Stephen B. Smith to specialize in consulting services that include bankruptcy management, corporate turnaround, fraud consulting and investigation, litigation support, and outsourced CFO services. A Saint Louis native, John is a graduate of the University of Missouri with a degree in accountancy, and he served ap-
proximately four years as the CFO of a group of family-owned businesses with sales in excess of $200 million and customers in domestic and international markets.
John has more than thirty-five years of public accounting experience providing audit, accounting, and consulting services. He is experienced in providing bankruptcy and corporate turnaround, fraud consulting and investigation and litigation support. John joined the Williams-Keepers ownership group in 2002.
“John could tell you story after story about workout situations he’s dealt with over the years,” Russ Starr said, “from the trucking industry to the rail industry to the financial industry, companies that flamed out after having grown like crazy for ten years and then something happened in the industry or with the leadership or a bad financial event and they started a downward spiral.”
He is a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, and the American Bankruptcy Institute. John has previously served as the President of the Missouri Chapter of the Turnaround Management Association.
In 1987, the AICPA celebrated its hundredth anniversary and voted to require all members who audit publicly traded companies to work for a firm that is a member of the SEC Practice Section. The AICPA also introduced the Personal
Financial Specialist credential.
On October 20, 1987, the stock market took a dive. That same year the Capitol Plaza became Jefferson City’s first downtown convention center. And Lou Rackers retired.
Lou had grown the Jefferson City business significantly as the partner-in-charge. Harry Otto stepped into that role—big shoes to fill. Because of his unflappable management style, employees called Harry “Steady Eddie.” Harry continued growing the business, landing Burgers’ Smokehouse in California, among many other clients.
G ROWING PAINS
Sometimes transitions can be difficult, especially transitioning to modern technology. Harry Otto chuckles about the evolution of the firm’s fax machine. The fax technology was brand new to the business world, relatively unknown and untested. When the subject arose to buy an expensive fax machine, some of the company’s management balked: “Oh, we don’t need a fax machine.” That’s when Stephen B. Smith piped up: “These plain-paper faxes are expensive—but necessary.” Some partners even resisted the costly upgrade from slick shiny paper to plain fax paper. Alas, the rank and file impressed upon management the importance of this change. “The fax machine was awesome,”
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WK’s Gang of Eight led the firm into a transformative time in the firm’s history in the 1990s. Mariel Liggett and Stephen C. Smith (left photo) enjoy a coffee break, (center photo, from left) Harry Otto, Stephen B. Smith, David Rawlings and Russ Starr discuss management objectives during a summer leadership retreat, and (right photo, from left) Stephen B. Smith, audit associate Lyle Rosburg, Bea Smith, Stephen B.’s wife, and John Sheehan relax during a company outing. WK Archive.
Mariel Liggett said. “It used to be we’d have to go down to Office Depot and pay five or ten cents a page to fax.”
Maybe Mike Odelehr said it best, marveling at the way things have changed since he joined the firm in 1975. “Technology has dramatically changed how we perform work and deliver services—no more green bar paper, ‘Pentels,’ or manual general ledgers! What hasn’t changed is the need to be able to communicate effectively with folks and deliver excellent service.”
More female professionals joined the firm. Mariel Liggett remembers when Heidi Chick came aboard. “Heidi—an awesome auditor— said, ‘One of the reasons I came to interview with Williams-Keepers was I looked you up in the phone book and saw you had a female partner.” Heidi relocated in 2001 to Columbia from Countryman and Associates in Nebraska. She joined the Williams-Keepers ownership group in 2003 and played a significant role in the growth of the firm’s audit practice until she retired in 2018.
Mary Jane Turner joined the Columbia office in 1987, coming from Rubin Brown Gornstein in Saint Louis. “Mary Jane was our firm tax manager for a number of years,” Russ Starr said, “the lead tax professional in administration of the department. She was very good.” She became a tax partner 1998. She retired in 2002.
Today the professional staff is virtually 50 percent female, the entire staff more than that.
“IT WAS JOYFUL”
John Sheehan, originally from Houston, Texas, graduated from Saint Louis University with degrees in accountancy and law. He joined the firm as a partner in 1989, coming from Deloitte Touche in Saint Louis to the Jefferson City office.
John remembers his first interview with Williams-Keepers, but it was a subsequent interview that left the most lasting impression. “I met David Rawlings and Don Decker at a conference room in a Saint Louis hotel. But the room was in the basement immediately adjacent to the boiler room. The noise made the interview unbearable. Dave found another conference room in another hotel and we finished the interview.
The next time we met was at a Flying J Truck Stop,” John laughed.
Sheehan was impressed with the firm for several reasons. “I came from a Big Eight firm in Saint Louis where not everybody had a computer on their desk—a computer was a shared resource—to Jefferson City where every professional at Williams-Keepers had a computer. I thought it was remarkable that the firm saw that need and acted on it.”
At that time the Jefferson City partners were Lou Rackers, Darrell Chronister, and Harry Otto. “Lou, an extraordinary man who was nearing the end of a long and really successful career, was very welcoming to my wife, Barbara, and me. Harry and I were peers relative to age, and Lou retired shortly after I joined. Mr. Chronister stayed with us, eventually continuing to serve clients in a part-time capacity.”
John was attracted to the family atmosphere at the firm. “WK always operated with integrity. And it was joyful. These were people who enjoyed life. I had come out of a different environment, the sterile environment of a Big Eight firm. I don’t mean that in a bad way. It was just a different environment. I began to embrace the community. I served our industry through the Missouri State Board of Accountancy and taught seven years at the University of Missouri School of Accountancy. And the firm allowed me to do that. It’s not something I did, it’s something we did.”
“A TRULY NATURAL LEADER”
John has nothing but praise for his partners at Williams-Keepers, and the firm’s leadership.
“Dave Rawlings was a truly natural leader. He was so well-regarded by all of the partners. He led with integrity. He was very industrious. And it was fun. I remember at our partner meetings, he would create the binders himself. Of course that was before we began to evolve into the electronic age,” John chuckled.
“Dave had a sort of genius—assembling the firm from three profit centers to one was the most critical decision that I think allowed Williams-Keepers to become the great firm it is today. Without that combination, the three offices with separate profit pools were at odds with each other. And within each profit pool, the partners were at odds with each other.”
Sheehan recalls a pivotal member meeting early in his career. The setting was at Les Bourgeois Winery, where the members reached a firm decision: “We will no longer see ourselves separately. We will see ourselves as one. The integrity of Dave Rawlings allowed that to occur. It was a very complex process. Remarkable.”
“What makes WK the success it is today,” Don Decker notes, “is that the partners were mature enough and willing to take the risk of having a one-firm concept. And there’s risk to everything, in this instance because you’re giving up some of your power.”
Harry Otto recalls that under the new onefirm concept, having eliminated separate profit centers, “When a partner had a bad collectable invoice, he would have to eat it. The money came out of his share. ‘Chop chop!’ the other partners would chide.”
As the 1980s drew to a close, WK had positioned itself to move forward as one firm, networked together, with a clear management and support structure to pave the way to success.
2013. After a public accounting career that spanned more than 40 years, David Rawlings retired. WK Archive.
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ABOVE: Late 1990s. Members of the partner and manager group conducted a strategic leadership retreat to talk about the firm’s future. WK Archive.
1990s: BIG DECISIONS
The members pivoted toward building succession within the firm, to develop leaders within the partnership.
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Althoughfew realized it at the time, the world changed forever in 1991 when the World Wide Web was launched.
Today it’s hard to remember life without email. Williams-Keepers was on the cutting edge of that new technology, setting up email in the early 1990s. Troy Norton recalls coming to WilliamsKeepers from a larger firm (BKD) in 1995; he was surprised to find that Williams-Keepers already had email while his former firm did not. As a new crop of CPA recruits joined WK, they increasingly embraced advances in technology.
The city of Columbia continued its robust growth, reaching 69,101 residents. Jefferson City grew to 35,481.
In 1990, Emil Ortmeyer left the firm and opened a practice in Jef ferson City.
Williams-Keepers’ reputation as a blue-chip firm was spotless. Over the decades the firm had attracted and developed the finest accountants anywhere in the Midwest, who learned the Williams-Keepers way of professionalism and entrepreneurship. Several of those fine accountants eventually started their own practices in Mid-Missouri communities.
Like many successful companies, WilliamsKeepers invests in training the firm’s employees. While the company is proud of the CPAs who went on to establish successful individual practices, WK soon would focus on ways to retain valuable employees.
In similar fashion at an earlier time, Paul Williams believed that it also was important to interact with Missouri’s family of CPAs. It was fitting then, that in 1991, following in founder Paul Williams’ footsteps, Harry Otto became the second partner at Williams-Keepers to serve as chair of the Missouri Society of CPAs (MOCPA) board.
One of MOCPA’s major initiatives during the nineties was the passage of the 150-hour law to sit for the CPA exam. On a national level, the profession pushed for this change, arguing that the additional year helps CPA candidates become prepared for the rigors of the CPA exam. In 1993, the law passed in Missouri, and it officially took effect in 1999.
CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: 1990. In October 1990 Mizzou and Colorado played the infamous “Fifth Down Game” at Faurot Field. Because of an officiating error that gave Colorado an extra down, Colorado scored late in the game and won 33 to 31. Colorado went on to win the national title that year St. Louis Post Dispatch. 1993. As a brand-new bronze statue of Beetle Bailey held court on the site of The Shack, the spring and early summer of 1993 brought monsoonal rains to the Midwest. The Missouri River ran above flood stage for sixty-two days in Jefferson City. Throughout the region the flood destroyed an estimated 100,000 homes and inundated fifteen million acres (60,000 km2) of farmland. The death toll officially was reported at thirty-two, but likely was fifty people. The flood was reminiscent of 1951, when a flood made it impossible to reach Jefferson City from Columbia for several weeks. The 1951 flood crested in Jefferson City at 34.2 feet on July 18. By comparison, the 1993 flood crested at 38.3 feet on July 31. Both floods impacted several WK clients and their suppliers. State HIstorical Society of Missouri. 1998. The Ragtag Film Society was formed. The Columbia College Cougar women’s volleyball team won the first of back-to-back NAIA championships. Columbia
College
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OUR PEOPLE:
What Is It Really Like at WK?
Public accounting is a demanding industry. WK strives to serve its clients with excellence and exceed their expectations. But that doesn’t mean the firm’s partners and associates don’t have a little fun. Whether it’s working together toward a common purpose or getting to know each other and our families in a less formal setting, WK makes time for activities that support a healthy work environment.
Varied Career Paths, Shared Commitment to Client Service
Some Williams-Keepers employees started as interns. Others arrived fresh from college graduation, eager to begin a career in public accounting. And some joined the firm having gained professional experience at other firms located throughout the United States. As different as their backgrounds might be, WK partners and associates share a common goal: earning the role of trusted business advisor to the firm’s clients.
ABOVE: WK associates enjoy an afternoon treat at Central Dairy in Jefferson City. WK Archive.
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
The mid-1990s was a key time when several of the partners had begun looking at their exit strategies and how they would get paid for the asset they had built. One way was to sell to a larger firm. The partners again spoke to an outside super regional firm interested in acquiring Williams-Keepers. The managing partner of the big firm made his pitch. In response, Stephen B. Smith asked, “How much vacation time do the partners get?” The big firm manager said, “We get four weeks. But nobody takes it.” Hearing that, the hard-working well-traveled WK partner closed his portfolio and proclaimed, “We’re done here.”
It was a bold statement about WK’s commitment to a healthy balance between work and family. And the commitment would grow even stronger in the coming decades.
The partners very quickly realized they would give up their autonomy, all their local control. Entrepreneurship would be gone. Basically the WK partners would become highly compensated employees of a much larger firm run by a committee that would direct the WK partners’ activities. The Gang of Eight decided that was not what they wanted for the remainder of their careers, or for their families.
Russ Starr offered insight into the meeting: “I don’t think the Gang of Eight ever had any intention of selling the firm or merging. I was probably the most willing to consider options like that sim-
ply because I had come from a bigger firm and I saw some of the advantages that they could generate with a deeper bench and more expertise. But there was never anywhere near consensus in that group of eight to sell the firm.”
So the members pivoted toward building succession within the firm, to develop leaders within the partnership. Other than bringing in John Sheehan and Russ Starr, they hadn’t made any new partners for almost two decades.
The succession plan was twofold: 1) establish deferred compensation and a buyout for retiring partners, and 2) add quality CPAs with an eye toward developing partners in an organic fashion.
“Since then WK continually has been growing its own new partners, advancing them up the ranks, developing their leadership skills to the point that now we have fifteen partners, none of whom were partners prior to 1999,” said Troy Norton, one of those recruits. “Only about 5 percent of businesses succeed into the third generation,” Troy noted. “One of the reasons they fail is they don’t plan for succession.”
In 1990, Jeffrey T. Echelmeier began working for Williams-Keepers while he was still at the University of Missouri, where he received a master of science in accountancy degree. He joined the full-time staff the next year.
Jeff grew up on a dairy farm in Fulton. So it was natural that he also earned a bachelor of agriculture degree from Mizzou. He specializes in income tax planning, issues related to forming
“At larger firms it’s almost normal for high (associate) turnover to exist. At Williams-Keepers, I don’t feel like it’s just a stepping stone to the next job—it’s somewhere that you can build a career.”
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—Caroline Boeger, CPA, Tax Supervisor
a new business, succession planning, estate tax planning, and wealth management. He works extensively with business owners, medical practitioners, and individual taxpayers.
Jeff explained why WK was the perfect fit. “It starts on a personal level. Ann and I knew we wanted to raise our family in Mid-Missouri. Columbia and the surrounding area has so much to offer. Living in a thriving college town provides many sporting and cultural activities, while still being small enough to have a ten-minute commute to work. It is the best of both worlds.”
Jeff also offered some insight into the WK culture: “On a professional level, WK was a perfect fit for me. The firm has a reputation as a leader in the community. It is big enough to work with some of the leading individuals and organizations in our area. It is also big enough to employ some of the brightest people in the profession, which gave me the opportunity to work with some of the best. Yet it is small enough to really make a difference in the lives of people we work with. And that is the most fulfilling part of the job.”
In addition to his client service role, Jeff, who joined the firm’s ownership group in 1999, eventually would become Williams-Keepers LLC’s chief executive officer, working with WK’s leadership team to guide the firm’s operations, growth, and strategies for achieving its vision “to become the destination firm for employees who seek a meaningful, well-balanced career, and for clients who seek the counsel of a trusted business advisor.”
In 1995, the AICPA launched the CPA Vision Project to define the future of the profession. Two years later, the AICPA offered the first exam for the Accredited in Business Valuation credential.
Joining Williams-Keepers in 1995, Troy D. Norton brought skills in a wide variety of industries, including financial institutions, agribusiness, insurance, manufacturing, wholesale/ retail, property management, and many others. Troy came to WK from Baird Kurtz & Dobson in Springfield, joining the ownership team in 2002. He sat for the first valuation exam in 1985 and became the firm’s first accredited valuation professional.
BUILDING STRENGTH THROUGH AFFILIATIONS: MOCPA, AICPA, Allinial Global Provide Valuable Resources
Throughout the years, Williams-Keepers LLC has enjoyed mutually beneficial relationships with member organizations that support the accounting profession and the firm’s access to professional resources.
The Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants (MOCPA) was formed in 1909 and “provides a professional advantage by enabling CPAs to stay current on rapidly changing technical issues, improve the quality of their work, and advance their careers.”
Numerous partners and associates have served in MOCPA leadership roles. Founder Paul Williams (1958 – 1959) and retired partner Harry Otto (19911992) served as chairpersons of the society during their tenure with the firm. Most recently, Amanda Schultz served a three-year term as board member that ended in 2023.
The firm is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), which has a 136-year history of providing resources to the accounting and finance industry and promoting the accounting profession. The AICPA’s mission is “to drive accounting and finance into the future by giving” its members “the support, skills and insights to meet the demands of a constantly changing world.”
WK was admitted to the Association of Regional Accounting Firms (ARAF) in 1981, a move intended to provide the firm with peer resources and partnerships designed to help smaller, growing firms remain independent and competitive with larger firms .
ARAF is now known as Allinial Global, and its mission is to “ help accounting and advisory firms transform their organizations by leveraging technology, creating communities that cultivate collaboration, and fostering strategic partnerships that expand capabilities.” WK partners and associates benefit from Allinial membership through leadership roles for organizations initiatives and committees, continuing professional education and industry-specific information sharing and resources.
In 2023, the organization included 261 member firms in 105 countries. Collectively, those firms had nearly $5 billion in annual revenues.
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WK Partner Amanda Schultz is the latest firm representative to serve as a board member for the MOCPA WK Archive.
EVOLUTION
Troy remembers his early days in accounting. “I started my career in 1989 at Price Waterhouse in Savannah, Georgia. Although Price Waterhouse was one of the Big Four accounting firms at the time, not all of us had computers. So we did everything on paper for a couple of years until we got what were called luggable computers, which were portable computers that did very, very little. Spreadsheets and word processing were all you could do, with very limited calculating in your spreadsheets.
“So for those first few years we did everything by hand. I still have under my desk one of my audit cases that carried all of our audit supplies. It was a routine part of your day that before you began an audit you would fill your audit case with supplies: different colored paper and pencils and pens, adding machine tape, the forms to put files together, Acco fasteners. I still have some sixteen-column green bar paper. Back then because you were writing everything in pencil, if you made a mistake you had to erase everything you wrote up to that point. We called the eraser residue audit feces,” he laughed.
Troy and Melinda Norton both grew up north of Columbia. He earned a degree in accounting from Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. “When we moved to Savannah, my wife and I missed our
families in Missouri. So we came back. I took a job with BKD in Springfield. At the time there was no bypass through the Lake of the Ozarks. It would take four hours to drive from Springfield to our families. So we came back to Columbia in 1995. I really didn’t know anything about WilliamsKeepers. I was lucky I joined a quality firm with a good career opportunity. And it also gave me the opportunity—just like Steve B. and John Sheehan, Harry, and others—to shape the direction of the firm. It’s turned out to be very gratifying, very rewarding, in a community that I love.”
“Troy was key to stepping up our civic involvement,” Stephen C. Smith noted.
Jeanette Klemme retired in 1995. Even so, her retirement was not complete. She worked part time for WK for another twelve years. “I felt I was in a good place, or I wouldn’t have stayed,” she smiled as she looked back over fifty-four years with Williams-Keepers.
In 1998, Williams-Keepers welcomed Ryan P. Henry to the staff. “I appreciate the environment that WK has fostered where I can grow
in my career each and every day,” said Ryan, who joined the firm after earning a degree in accounting and graduating summa cum laude from Southwest Baptist University. “There is always an opportunity to learn something new and to challenge myself in different areas. My best day at work involves collaborating with members of our team to solve a problem for a client and make a positive impact in that client’s life and business.” Ryan joined the WilliamsKeepers ownership group in 2012.
If you’re old enough to remember the fear that Y2K—the dawning of the new millennium—would bring chaos and disruption to computers and the Internet, let it be known the firm was ready. “We were not worried a bit about it because all of our systems were not the types of systems susceptible to that,” recalls Ken Lange. “I understood the fears that a flaw could have a chain reaction, but I didn’t see it.”
As the world held its collective breath, the worldwide web moved into Y2K without a hitch. And so did Williams-Keepers.
WK HELPS… “I’ve been able to learn a lot personally and professionally from the relationships I’ve made working at Williams-Keepers. Being able to laugh with the people you work with makes a huge difference. And when we are together outside of the office, it’s the exact same relationship as within. So it kind of pieces your life together. Instead of just having your job and then your family, you have it all in one big picture.” —Abagayle Horn, CPA, Tax Senior
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WK sponsors family-oriented events throughout the year to promote camaraderie among coworkers and their families. WK Archive.
Summer leadership retreats help the firm’s partner group set direction for the coming year.
In 2008, the partner group included (stairs, from left)
John Sheehan, Kathy Graessle, Lon Brockmeier, Debbie Mathes, Heidi Chick, Stephen C. Smith and Mike Oldelehr, (front row, from left) Troy Norton, Stephen B. Smith, Harry Otto, Russ Starr, Jeff Echelmeier, Mariel Liggett and Trae Lorts . WK Archive.
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2000s: A NEW GENERATION
The focus on business consulting— even more than the compliance part of the business—helped make Williams-Keepers one of the most influential firms in the region.
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Thenew millennium brought changes to the world and to WK.
Don Decker retired in 2000, although he continued to consult until 2013. “In fact, Don loved the firm so much that he was still one of the most active advocates for the firm,” Troy Norton said. “He made sure we got business leads in Mexico, for sure, but elsewhere as well. He made sure the clients who transferred from Mexico to Columbia or Jeff City felt connected.”
Columbia’s 2000 census recorded 84,531 people. Jefferson City grew dramatically to 39,636 residents.
In 2001, the International Accounting Standards Committee was renamed the International Accounting Standards Board. And that year WK added two members to the ownership group: Mike Odelehr and Debra Mathes. The next year the firm added three more owners: Kathy Graessle, Troy Norton, and John Vaclavek.
Troy Norton recalls Williams-Keepers began a generational shift in 2001. Specialization continued. Agriculture specialization really took off with WK’s agricultural support group. The new partners mixed in well with the existing owners, who led by example. Mariel Liggett continued her focus on ERISA, Stephen C. Smith concentrated on colleges, among other things, and Russ Starr specialized in banks.
BANKING ON SUCCESS
Russ shared his insight into WK’s move toward specialization. “When I came to WK in the
early 80s, it was primarily a tax firm, and that’s how the partners thought of themselves. They had the biggest and best tax clients in Central Missouri, the deepest bench, and the strongest technical abilities. It was an amazing tax firm. But my background at BKD had been in audit. Don Caldwell and Stephen C. Smith were two audit partners in Columbia, and in Jeff City, Harry and the other guys were dual, handling a few audits, but they were primarily tax people. My experience had been with some bigger clients on the audit side, and that was my vision to advance WK.
“So, supported by Dave, Steve, Mariel, and their connections, we began to develop and broaden our client base to include larger corporate clients. The Landrum family was one of our first. They had banks in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. I got involved with the Landrum family and got to know them really well. During the 1980s banks were having a lot of financial problems because of high-interest agricultural loans. There were banks for sale, and so I helped the family buy banks during the next decade. So we began to develop a practice in the banking area. We had quite a number of bank clients. But we also began to pick up clients like MFA Oil Company, MFA Inc., and Midway Arms.”
Kathy Graessle further explained the value of specialization: “WK offers a variety of specialty services: cost seg analysis, valuations, employee benefit planning and administration, tax and audit consultations, and succession planning are
Tax Reform Act of 1986
It started in 1986. One IRS employee would manually turn on a modem every time tax returns were e-filed.
Twenty-five years later the IRS e-file surpassed a landmark: one billion individual Form 1040 tax returns received and processed safely and securely. In 2020 alone, nearly two hundred million tax returns were e-filed.
IRS e-file has come a long way from the twenty-five thousand returns submitted by five tax preparers in 1986.
The United States Treasury Department tells the story: In the 1980s, efficient tax collection was becoming more difficult because of the complex, time-consuming, and error-prone process of converting paper returns and information documents into a form that could be processed by machine. Even storage of paper tax and information returns was becoming costly as the burgeoning reams of paper forms and documents required more space.
Even as tax practitioners were starting to use computers to prepare clients’ taxes, the IRS still forced them to print and mail returns because of the processing system.
Enter IRS e-file. The initial idea sprang from the IRS Research Division, which ran tests to prove the technical feasibility of the Electronic Filing System (EFS), a concept it believed would simplify the processing method.
In 1986, the IRS launched a pilot program to test the costs and benefits of EFS and to gauge acceptance by preparers and taxpayers. Only five tax preparers in three metropolitan areas—Cincinnati, RaleighDurham, and Phoenix—agreed to participate. Then, the system could only process returns that were due refunds.
WK HELPS…“I believe that our depth of resources and relationships with our clients makes us stand out. We take our client relationships personally in many cases and truly want to help them in any way we are able, always looking for solutions to their problems.”
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—John Weaver, CPA, Partner
E-File Historical Timeline
1986: Initial filing season pilot with 5 tax preparers in 3 cities; 25,000 returns filed. The program could only accept simple returns that were due a refund.
1987: Pilot expanded to 7 cities; 78,000 returns filed. Direct Deposit was added as a benefit.
1988: Pilot expanded to 16 IRS districts; 583,000 returns filed. The Form 1065 (partnerships) and Form 1041 (trusts) were added to the e-file list.
1989: Pilot expanded to 36 states; 1.1 million returns filed.
1990: E-File expanded nationwide; 4.2 million returns filed.
1992: Telefile pilot debuted for 1040-EZ filers to e-file via telephone. The IRS began to accept individual tax returns where tax is owed and checks could be mailed via paper voucher.
1998: Congress set a goal of an 80 percent e-file rate for “all federal tax and information returns.”
1999: Electronic payments through credit cards or direct debit introduced; IRS piloted an alternative program to allow taxpayers to sign returns electronically instead of mailing a signature form.
2002: IRS allowed taxpayers to sign e-file returns using a Personal Identification Number (PIN), which made the e-file process entirely paperless.
2003: Free File debuted; IRS partnered with Free File Alliance, a consortium of tax software companies, to make free tax preparation software and free e-file available to most individual taxpayers. In a major step for businesses, e-file expanded to the quarterly Form 941 for employment taxes and the annual Form 944 for small businesses.
2004: Modernized e-File (MeF), the next generation of IRS e-file, made its debut, accepting business and information returns such as Forms 1120, 1120-S, and 990 series.
2005: E-filed returns crossed the 50 percent threshold; 68.4 million returns filed. Telefile ended after years of declining use as users migrated to tax software and e-file.
2006: MeF became mandatory for businesses and exempt organizations with assets of $50 million or more.
2007: MeF threshold for businesses and exempt organizations lowered to assets of $10 million or more.
2009: Congress passed a provision requiring tax preparers who file more than 10 individual tax returns to file electronically; IRS phased-in the requirement, setting the threshold at 100 or more for 2011 and 11 or more for 2012.
2010: MeF began a roll-out for the Form 1040 series and 23 related forms; it would take three or more years to make all the related forms available; IRS stopped mailing paper Form 1040 packages.
2011: E-filed returns crossed the 100 million threshold in one filing season; cumulative total exceeded 1 billion returns. Approximately three out of every four individual tax returns were filed electronically.
Today: Electronic filing accounts for more than 90 percent of all tax returns filed (2019 and 2020).
just a few of the specialty areas. With more than one hundred employees, WK has experts in all critical areas and relies on teamwork to service a client. This offers our clients a high level of consulting services, and it allows employees to gain experience in various areas of audit and tax consulting.”
John Sheehan worked with small business owners and not-for-profits and continued to be a huge business developer for WK. Sheehan also served six years on the Missouri State Board of Accountancy and later taught mergers and acquisitions and corporate taxation at the master’s level at Mizzou. Meanwhile Russ Starr served on the University of Missouri School of Accountancy Advisory Board.
The focus on business consulting—even more than the compliance part of the business—helped make Williams-Keepers one of the most influential firms in the region.
On May 27, 2001, Charles Edward Oliver, aged eighty-seven, died in Columbia at Boone Hospital Center. He was survived by his wife, Erma Anderson. The couple were just fourteen days shy of their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Ed had been retired from Williams-Keepers for twenty-six years, but he always was available to lend a hand or give sound advice. Fourteen months after Ed Oliver passed, Thomas Johnson Payne, aged eightytwo, of Columbia died Wednesday, September 11, 2002, at his home. He was survived by his wife, Tatie Payne. They were married fifty-four years and co-owned the successful business Coldwell Banker Tatie Payne Inc.
In 2001 and 2002, the entire accounting world was stunned by the collapse of Enron and its audit firm Arthur Andersen. Enron restated its earnings back to
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1986. President Ronald Reagan signed the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which represented the last major form of national tax laws. Journal of Accountancy.
1977 and filed for bankruptcy. Arthur Andersen collapsed due to its association with Enron. In 2002, WorldCom’s accounting fraud was discovered and the company filed for bankruptcy, further rocking the accounting profession. Normally accounting firms stay out of the news. They work meticulously in the background, providing trusted numbers for their clients. Normally. But suddenly the industry was facing large-scale public relations issues, intense scrutiny, and integrity concerns. The Big Eight accounting firms dwindled to four. Congress responded quickly, passing public accounting reform legislation including the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002, creating the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to set public company auditing standards. Arthur Andersen LLP was convicted of obstruction of justice, and the firm unraveled, but in 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Arthur Andersen’s 2002 conviction.
At the same time, CPA candidates said goodbye to the twice-yearly, pencil-and-paper CPA exam when the profession switched to a convenient new computerized exam, available six days a week throughout most of the year.
THE TORCH IS PASSED
In 2002, David Rawlings, nearing retirement, handed the managing partner duties to Russ Starr, who became WK’s second managing partner, responsible for strategic leadership of the firm as well as the management of its day-today operations. Russ would serve in that capacity for ten years, guiding WK’s growth and direction, overseeing fourteen member-owners and approximately 110 associates at the firm’s locations in Columbia and Jef ferson City.
“By the time I became managing partner,” Russ recalled, “we got away from the territorialism of client protection. It was no longer: ‘I’m in Jeff City so I don’t want a Columbia guy working on my client because I want to keep the profit in my office.’
“It wasn’t just my vision. We wanted the best people working on the clients they were best suited to serve.”
Stephen C. Smith agreed with Russ. “The firm should put its best people on the job, regardless of location. The big hurdle, even more than spe-
cialization, was overcoming the autonomies of Columbia, Jefferson City, and Mexico.”
ON THE MOVE
In 2002, Williams-Keepers completed a consolidation of the Jefferson City office, moving from two floors at 107 Adams Street to the new one-floor office at 3220 West Edgewood. John Sheehan remembers that after moving to Edgewood, everything was different. “We had wide open spaces. The offices around the exterior allowed light to penetrate through the offices so everyone in the core had the same light as those on the exterior. And light brings goodwill. That was a revolutionary design, and a fun process. It was aligned to a client who owned the building, and that was a good thing.” Everyone had input. In the words of one partner, the new site “is a great innovative space.”
Moving to the client-owned building in Jefferson City signaled a new outlook for the firm. With ownership of only one other major property--the Columbia office on Ash Street-Williams-Keepers had nearly completed moving away from owning properties.
Russ Starr explained the evolution away from property ownership. Two decades ago, “WK began changing the branding, changing the image of the firm. When I came we had one-person offices in Moberly, Mexico, Rolla and Lebanon. One-person offices do everything, not specialized. They do tax returns, and if there’s an audit to be done in the community, they’ll offer their services. That wasn’t consistent with where I thought the firm ought to go in terms of specialization and being able to deal with the bigger, more complex, more sophisticated clients.
“We wanted fewer offices with more people in those offices, to allow that synergy of the right people talking to each other. That fosters the creativity and bouncing off ideas that you can’t do when you’re just a one-person shop. And all of those were individual profit centers, individual offices where ‘you eat what you kill.’”
John E. Weaver has worked in public accounting since 2000, and he joined Williams-Keepers LLC in 2002. “I wanted to work at a larger CPA firm with more opportunities, yet stay in Central
Missouri,” John explained. “I was aware of WK because my aunt worked here and I did an interview with Don Decker for my career notebook in high school. When the time was right I made the move.”
John specializes in tax and business advisory services. He works with individuals and businesses on tax compliance and planning, startup consultations, entity structuring, accounting system consultations, and attest services. He joined the Williams-Keepers ownership group in 2011.
The Williams-Keepers family was saddened to learn that on August 27, 2003, Dorothy Louise Horton Rackers, Lou Rackers’ wife of fifty-four years, died at age seventy-nine. She loved cooking, sewing, flowers and family.
Jon C. Class graduated from Columbia College in 2002 with a bachelor of science degree in business administration, with a double major in accounting and management. He earned the Presidential Award for the highest GPA in the school and received the Rogers Gate award, the most prestigious award presented by Campus Life. He also earned a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Missouri in 2003. He came to work for WK in 2003, and he joined the Williams-Keepers ownership group in 2016. He specializes in accounting, audit, and consulting services for retirement plans, manufacturing companies, insurance companies, and construction contractors.
Jon has experience with ERISA and Department of Labor compliance issues impacting employee benefit plans. He oversees many of the firm’s employee benefit plan audits and regularly participates in continuing professional education for the employee benefit plan industry. He also consults with insurance companies on reporting with both statutory accounting principles and U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
“WK provides all the benefits of working in my local community and the resources of larger firms,” Jon said. “Being part of the WK team makes me realize I don’t want to be anywhere else. The culture at WK is amazing. I’m surrounded by other professionals and clients who contribute to a continuous learning environment
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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: 2000. Across from the governor’s mansion the old Governor Hotel had fallen into disrepair. But a stunning renovation saw the old building repurposed as the Governor Office Building at a cost of $15 million. The 100,000-square-foot property is a mix of offices, businesses, and food service establishments. News Tribune. 2001. Partner Harry Otto speaks during a conference room dedication ceremony after the Jefferson City office relocated from Adams Street to a new location on West Edgewood Drive. Conference rooms were named for former partners Darrell Chronister, Lou Rackers and Jim Weber. WK Archive. 2001. The Columbia College Cougar women’s volleyball team won another NAIA championship. The nine-hole Stephens Golf Course transitioned to Stephens Lake Park. Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau. 2002. Columbia voters were the first in the nation to repeal a city’s five-cent beverage container deposit. Columbia Missourian. 2003. On October 11, 2003, the goalposts came down at Faurot Field as Mizzou snapped a 24-game losing streak to Nebraska, beating the Cornhuskers 41–24. Earlier that spring moviegoers from around the world flocked to Columbia’s inaugural True/False Film Festival, focusing on the world’s best documentary films. Three years later True/False won the Riverfront Times award for best film festival. RockMNation. 2005. Jefferson City’s arts scene got a big boost when the old Jefferson City Senior High School—formerly known as Freshman High—transformed into the Etta and Joseph Miller Performing Arts Center. Up the hill on High Street the iconic Exchange Bank clock was named a Jefferson City Landmark. News Tribune.
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and a rewarding career. I’m thankful every day that I get to work with such great people.”
In 2004, a new computerized Uniform CPA Examination focused more on research skills and problem solving. The Missouri State Board of Accountancy updated CPA licensure requirements—adding two hours of mandatory ethics education to be taken each year.
NEW DIGS, NEW LOOK
When the opportunity arose for WK to consolidate its Columbia operations and custom-design a space on the first floor of a new two-story, 40,000-square-foot office building, the firm decided to relocate. The building, located at Shelter Office Plaza at the northeast corner of Broadway and Stadium, was completed in 2006. Except for the restrooms and HVAC ductwork, the first-floor space was a wide-open slab of concrete. The firm brought in a design group from Saint Louis to create the interior, and the new design enhanced WK’s presence in the region. And beyond.
The adjustment wasn’t without some heartburn. “I wasn’t trained to navigate through dealing with thirteen partners to build the house,” Russ Starr commented with a smile, “but we made it through, and everyone ultimately is very proud.”
Meanwhile the firm continued to attract and cultivate new members.
Jeremy E. Morris began his career in public accounting at WK in 2005 and joined the member group in 2016. He provides tax and consulting services for the firm’s individual and business clients and makes presentations to local groups on various tax topics. He works with insurance companies, closely held businesses, construction companies, and estates and trusts.
Jeremy earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from the University of Missouri in 2002 and earned a master of science in business administration from Penn State University in 2005.
For Jeremy, “Everything begins with an attitude of service to our clients and service to each other. Closely related to service is caring. We truly care enough to try to improve the situations
of those around us, be they clients or associates. Those attributes are the reason we have client relationships that span multiple generations of ownership, and they are the reason I have seen staff return to the office after leaving for the night to help a fellow associate finish an important project. If we care enough to truly want to help our clients and co-workers be more successful, everything else takes care of itself.”
Leslie “Trae” Lorts joined the membership group of Williams-Keepers in 2007. His career in taxation began in 1992 and includes four years as the principal of Lorts Group LLC. He specializes in taxation and business consulting and also provides business valuation services.
Trae graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s in accountancy from the University of Missouri. He earned the designation as a Certified Valuation Analyst in 1999 and served as an adjunct faculty member at William Woods University for two years. He is a member of the firm’s Real Estate and Construction Service Team.
“Williams-Keepers is a very special place,” Trae said. “I began my career in what was the Big Six, and I have practiced as a sole practitioner with six employees. WK marries big and small in the best ways. We are large enough to offer expertise in specialties valued by large employers, and small enough to have personal relationships with the people we serve. The individuals who cumulatively are Williams-Keepers enjoy a workplace that allows a good amount of autonomy and provides a warm environment where everyone genuinely cares about each other. Together we can compete with some of the biggest names in our industry.”
Nicholas J. Mestres joined the firm in 2007. He became a member of the Williams-Keepers ownership group in 2018. Nick serves a wide range of clients, including public employee retirement systems, insurance, agribusiness, and wholesale/ retail distribution.
He is the firm’s leader of technology advancements—now chief technology officer—including WK’s data extraction and analysis software,
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2007. WK moved its Columbia office from its longtime West Ash Street location to 2005 Wes t Broadway. WK Archive.
IDEA. Nick, who graduated from the University of Missouri with a master of accountancy degree, likes where he landed. “This is my forever home. The family culture at WK is not the norm today, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to be here.”
FAREWELL AND GODSPEED
In the space of three years, the firm would lose three key members.
David Rawlings retired in 2007 after an exemplary career, not only in his chosen profession, but also assuming the role of leadership at a critical time for the firm. His guidance and decision-making grew the firm and set it on a solid course for success in the years following his leadership.
Jeff Echelmeier, current firm chairman, said of Rawlings, who was the firm’s first managing partner, “Dave has been a critical link in our firm between some of the original founders and the current group of partners and associates we have today. He is a great example of how a professional should conduct himself.”
Jeanette Klemme, who had been working part time the past twelve years, also retired in 2007.
Darrell L. “D.C.” Chronister died on October 11, 2008. He was eighty-two years old. His dedication to service continued after his death—friends and family made memorial contributions to the Forty & Eight Nurses Training Program.
In the prime of his life, Stephen B. Smith died on August 1, 2009, while doing what he loved: traveling with his family. He was sixty-three years old. Stephen left an enduring legacy beyond Williams-Keepers: Civic involvement. And family. As a member of the Gang of Eight, he helped guide the course of Williams-Keepers into the new millennium. His expertise in taxation led to his being one of two experts invited to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee on needed changes in the U.S. Income Tax Code.
He developed unique expertise in litigation support and was designated in Naifeh & Smith’s “The Best Lawyers in America” as one of the nation’s outstanding experts in the areas of lost profits, employment damages, and business
valuation. Stephen developed a strong specialization in forensic accounting and was awarded one of the first Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF) credentials by the AICPA.
Williams-Keepers partner John Sheehan said, “Steve was a powerful advocate for his clients and a formidable opponent for his courtroom adversaries. This was his world, and he demonstrated an extraordinary command of it.”
A NE W GENERATION
In 2008, Williams-Keepers LLC welcomed two new accountants who would become members.
Jessica M. Lehmen joined WK, having graduated summa cum laude from the University of Missouri with a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in accountancy.
“I’ve developed relationships with clients and coworkers that I can’t imagine leaving,” Jessica said. “I love working with clients to determine the tax impact of different scenarios, helping them make business and investment decisions.”
Jessica specializes in tax and accounting services for businesses and individuals, including an emphasis in state and local taxation, agribusiness, and retirement and employee benefits. She is the firm’s leader regarding Missouri’s adoption of the SALT Parity Act, which created 2022 income tax saving opportunities for partnership and S-corporation owners. She joined the Williams-Keepers ownership group in 2018.
“Public accounting in general is a very challenging, fast-paced profession, and you learn so much in your first few years, but really that growth doesn’t stop,” said Amanda M. Schultz, who is one of WK’s most experienced professionals in audits of governments, not-for-profits, and small businesses. She also serves as the firm’s partner for associate recruiting and retention efforts.
“A big part of WK is the culture, including a ‘family feel,’” Amanda said. “That includes location, opportunities for career development, and work-life balance. My best day at work is either 1) interacting with future potential team members at recruiting events or 2) working directly with my team members to support them in growing their careers and serving our clients.”
Amanda graduated magna cum laude from the University of Missouri with a master of accountancy degree. She is a member of the Government Finance Officers Association. She joined WK in 2007 and the firm’s ownership group in 2019.
Congress passed the Dodd–Frank Act after the recession of 2008. The act contains sixteen major areas of reform, including creation of the Financial Stability Oversight Council. The Volcker Rule restricts banks from owning, investing, or sponsoring hedge funds, private equity funds, or any other type of proprietary trading operations that result in their own profit. Also in 2008, the Certified Financial Forensics credential launched. The next year FASB issued the Accounting Standards Codification as the single source of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
In 2009, Mark E. Gingrich joined the firm, bringing the rare combination of degrees in accounting, business, and law. Mark leverages his training in tax research to offer planning and consulting solutions related to estate planning, trust and estate matters, business structuring, and succession planning. A native of Columbia, Mark completed his law degree with high honors at the University of Iowa. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri, where he earned undergraduate degrees in accounting and business administration with emphasis in economics, and a master’s in accounting. He joined the WilliamsKeepers ownership group in 2014.
“My career at WK has provided the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our clients and our people,” Mark said. “A strong group of leaders invested in me and my development and provided the opportunity to invest in the lives of our people. The client mix at WK lets us interact with the decision makers with a close personal connection to the work we do.”
As the decade drew to a close, WK had positioned itself to forge ahead with a new generation of leaders.
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2010s:
GROWTH
By the start of the decade, Williams-Keepers had grown to seventy-five employees and had undergone a culture change from one firm to one family.
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ABOVE: WK partners and associates and their families gather for Family Day at Warm Springs Ranch, the Budweiser Clydesdales breeding facility near Boonville. WK Archive
Overallin America, the professional work environment was changing as new graduates entered the workforce with high expectations. The best and the brightest young CPAs fresh out of college wanted the proper support to enhance their professionalism, and their families. Their message: “We need human resources, flexible schedules to balance family, and state-of-the-art networking.”
WK heard the message loud and clear. And WK responded.
By the start of the decade, Williams-Keepers had grown to seventy-five employees and had undergone a culture change from one firm to one family.
“It was a continuation of the generational change in leadership,” Troy Norton notes. That’s when Russ Starr turned over the managing partner duties. Russ, John Sheehan, and Mariel Liggett were still on board to guide the next generation, and WK created a different leadership structure.
The firm already had begun operating under a leadership committee, with officer positions and a compensation committee. Jeff Echelmeier was chosen by the firm’s partners as chairman.
“Jeff’s mantra is ‘we can do better,’” Stephen C. Smith noted. “I would not have stayed as long with the firm if it didn’t have a strong ethic of helping people.”
The new leadership structure focused on freeing up members’ time for work production. Indeed, the new structure led to accelerated
growth. “Our firm’s growth really took off at the time we began to change the firm’s culture,” Troy Norton said.
“The firm has increasingly embraced an ‘abundance mentality’ and focused on helping clients. And significant growth has followed,” Mark Gingrich explained. “We have built a recruiting team to build our pipeline, and we’ve invested in developing our team, providing client leadership opportunities to our staff early in their careers.”
John Weaver reflected on the firm’s evolving culture. “We have a much more relaxed atmosphere and are more focused on solving client problems and consulting versus just getting compliance projects completed.”
In 2010, Jefferson City continued rapid population growth, reaching 43,079. Columbia’s census showed a 28 percent increase, eclipsing the century mark with 108,500 residents.
Columbia welcomed Father Augustine Tolton Regional Catholic High School. The school is named after “Good Father Gus,” the Missouri native, born a slave, who became the first ordained African American Roman Catholic priest in America.
In 2010, Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
GOODBYE AND HELLO
Erma Anderson Oliver died October 3, 2010, nine years after her beloved husband Ed. She was ninety-four. The couple were within two
weeks of fifty years of marriage the year Ed died. Erma was “a member of three separate PTA groups for a total of 29 years.”
Russ Starr left the firm in 2012 to become chief financial officer for Veterans United.
He reflected on WK’s evolution. “I saw myself as a transitional partner between the era of Dave Rawlings, Mariel Liggett, Lou Rackers, and Darrell Chronister, and the present ownership group: Jeff and Troy and all those who transitioned the firm from a more traditional locally based tax specialty practice into a broader practice, able to serve larger corporate client s as well.”
Russ especially likes WK’s track record for developing professionals who go on to help the community. “I’m really proud of WK’s alumni base in the community—they have benefited the business community tremendously. There are local businesspeople of all stripes who cut their teeth in the business world with WK. You can’t throw a rock into a business office around here without hitting somebody who has worked here for a lit tle while.”
2011 was an active year in the accounting profession. The Horizons 2025 report outlined opportunities and challenges for the profession. The CPA exam was offered outside the U.S. in Japan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates, with Brazil joining the group in 2012. A blue-ribbon panel on private companies recommended a new board and modifications to GAAP that recognize the unique purposes of private company financial statements.
WK HELPS…“Especially over the last ten years the firm has really shifted to where the center is around work-life balance, around creating a culture with more of the flexibility everyone desires. You can choose opportunities as a professional, what’s going to be the best and what you’re passionate about.”
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—Megan Stevens, CPA, Controller Services Manager
The IRS required all preparers to have Preparer Tax Identification Numbers (PTINs). And the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board was established.
In 2012, AICPA membership grew to nearly 380,000.
Continuing to attract quality CPAs, WilliamsKeepers welcomed Chris Schneider to the firm in 2012. Chris specializes in tax, business valuations, cost segregation studies, and other consulting projects. In addition to being a CPA, he is a Certified Valuation Analyst. He joined the Williams-Keepers ownership group in 2020.
Chris began his career in public accounting in 2009 after graduating from the University of Missouri with a master of accountancy degree.
“I did an internship initially with a Big Four firm from Kansas City,” Chris remembers, “and also with Williams-Keepers. I ultimately decided to take the job in Kansas City. It wasn’t too long before I decided that moving back to Central Missouri and joining the WK team was the right call.”
“I remember within months of coming back and starting at Williams-Keepers, I was having a conversation with a friend who was still at a Big Four firm. And being completely honest, I told him I could actually see myself being a partner at a firm like this and that’s not something that I had ever envisioned in the past.”
Louis H. Rackers died on February 23, 2015. He was eighty-nine. “Lou was a character,” Dottie Bemboom said. “He was a great boss.”
“Lou always had a good sense of humor,” Stephen C. Smith added.
And he was a loyal member of the WK family who nurtured the firm’s philosophy of helping people.
Reflecting on WK’s long history of helping the community, Harry Otto noted the similarities among three of the firm’s CPAs. Lou Rackers, Jim Weber, and Darrell Chronister were born within six days of one another in early December 1925. Each man entered the military during World War II. Rackers and Chronister joined the Navy, Weber entered the Army. All became CPAs and joined the same firm. Following the George Keepers tradition, each was a vital member of several
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: 2013. The Roots N Blues Festival moved from downtown Columbia to spacious Stephens Lake Park. That year the three-day festival, considered by tourism officials as one of the best in America, featured John Hiatt, Johnny Winter, Steve Earle, and Trombone Shorty. Six miles north of Stephens Lake Park, Muriel Williams Battle High School opened, becoming Columbia’s third comprehensive public high school, named for Williams Battle, a long-time educator who served the local community for more than forty years. Columbia Missourian. 2016. WK collected 2,412 pounds of old electronics during our Fall E-cycling Drive on October 21. Printers, computer monitors, laptops, and hard drives were some of the most common items collected during the event, held in both the Jefferson City and Columbia offices. The firm’s employees also collected an Xbox, an iPad, and three microwaves, in addition to numerous other office and household electronic items. WK Archive. 2019. Columbia scored another first when its new Columbia Agriculture Park opened, a public-private partnership between Columbia Parks and Recreation, the Columbia Farmers Market, the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture, and Sustainable Farms and Communities. Columbia Ag Park.
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OUR PEOPLE: Giving Back
Giving back to the community is a part of the Williams-Keepers culture. Paul Williams established it. George Keepers and his partners from the Greatest Generation ensured it. WK is committed to serving the communities in which we live and work, continuing a legacy of service established by our firm’s founders.
“Whenever charitable organizations need professional services—that may take the form of a formation document or the creation of a new foundation—Williams-Keepers handprints are on many, many of those organizational documents, of those tax filings, which go through an elaborate application process with the IRS,” John Sheehan said. “In a volunteer capacity, I can think of a dozen or more instances where we had, from a legal perspective, the opportunity to bring to life a new foundation in support of a charity.”
“It’s a carryover culture,” Troy Norton noted, “from the generation of Lou Rackers and Darrell Chronister.”
“It’s in the firm’s DNA,” Sheehan agreed.
In fact, visit the Heart of Missouri United Way offices in downtown Columbia—in the building Williams-Keepers built—and you’ll see their handiwork framed on the wall of the Williams-Keepers conference room: the first financial statement for Columbia Community Chest, predecessor to the Heart of Missouri United Way, performed back in June 1947 by Williams-Keepers.
During one memorable fundraising event for the United Way of Central Missouri (shown above), Sheehan even took two dozen pies in the face.
That’s dedication.
community service organizations: Rackers in the Knights of Columbus and Rotary International, Chronister in Cosmopolitan International and the American Legion, and Weber in the Knights of Columbus and Lions Clubs International. Harry remembers that in addition, Darrell was a regular blood donor. Service.
“NO SUCH THING AS A TYPICAL DAY”
Mariel Liggett retired on New Year’s Eve, 2016, to enjoy time with her family and her beloved pets, including Jeremy the Talking Parrot.
Mariel reflected on her time at WilliamsKeepers in an interview with COMO Magazine. “Simply put, it was awesome. If you asked me back then, I wouldn’t have said I ‘made partner’ early. My late associate, Stephen B. Smith, and I were admitted to the firm at the same time. If you were able to ask George Keepers and Tom Payne, they’d tell you we were both knocking pretty hard on that partnership door. And if you ask my recently retired partner, Dave Rawlings, I believe he’d say he was happy to open the door for both of us to join them.”
“One of the things I like best about WK: there is no such thing as a typical day, which makes for an exciting day practically every day.”
IN GOOD HANDS
Meanwhile, partners realized they needed to add administrative personnel so the firm’s CPAs could focus on business rather than taking them out of production to perform human resources functions, marketing, and other critical housekeeping. Already the firm’s director of business development, Shawn Barnes, had been on the job since 2002 and assumed responsibility for the firm’s recruiting and hiring activities in 2008. Ken Lange had been holding down the IT duties for even longer. Prior to his retirement, Ken managed the firm’s computer network, maintaining data communication links between the company offices and remote access points, and ensuring network security. Ken and the IT staff focused on integrating and utilizing the latest technology while maintaining a high level of security, efficiency, and productivity. In charge of both Jefferson City and Columbia offices, Dottie
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Bemboom served twenty-eight years, beginning as a clerk and eventually becoming firmwide administrator.
Lyle Rosburg became Williams-Keepers director of finance after Stephen C. Smith, who had been shouldering the CFO duties, retired as a partner in 2016. Steve worked part time for another year, finishing up projects.
It was Lyle’s second tour of duty with WK. He originally came to Williams-Keepers in 1995 as an audit senior with four years of experience under his belt from Arthur Andersen in Saint Louis. After two and a half years at WK, Lyle took a job as controller for the Missouri Development Finance Board. Most recently he came from a sixteen-year stint as comptroller, then CFO for Jefferson City Medical Group (JCMG), a business that John Sheehan was instrumental in helping develop.
As CFO at Williams-Keepers, Lyle oversees the budget and cash flow functions, leads the finance team members, and participates in strategic planning. He also analyzes budgets, financial reports, and financial trends to assist the team in performing their responsibilities.
The firm didn’t have to look far to get their marketing leader. Osage County native Jennifer Backes joined Williams-Keepers in 2017 as director of marketing and communications. Jennifer earned a bachelor of marketing and public relations from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She has more than a dozen years of professional experience in strategic marketing, public relations, event planning, and consulting.
Jennifer helps foster the growth of WK through social media management, strategic marketing, and community outreach. She handles the firm’s website content management as well as media planning and communit y relations.
Michelle McCaulley joined Williams-Keepers in August 2022 as director of human resources. Michelle is a human-resources professional with nearly three decades of experience, with her focus on employment law, employee relations, change management, and manager mentorship. She received a degree in business administration from Columbia College. Her first master’s in human re-
sources management is from Webster University, and her second master’s, an LLM in labor and employment law, is from Tulane School of Law.
In 2017, John Sheehan left the firm after twenty-eight years to serve as CFO for one of his favorite clients, Farmer Companies. John always expressed appreciation that WilliamsKeepers allowed its members and employees to take the time to be involved in the community.
“Whenever charitable organizations need certificates or documents, Williams-Keepers steps up to do the paperwork. Giving back to the community is in the DNA of the firm.”
In 2017, Congress enacted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which aimed to cut individual, corporate, and estate tax rates.
CLEAR AS A BELL
Face-to-face meetings between CPAs and clients are crucial. But sometimes those faceto-face meetings are more easily convened electronically. In 2018, Williams-Keepers installed state-of-the-art video conferencing.
ONE FIRM , ONE FAMILY
The partners continued to focus on the firm’s positive culture change. “Working here can involve long hours and high stress,” Troy Norton noted.
Yet Williams-Keepers has a simple philosophy with regard to work-life balance: “Family needs come before work.” Partners encourage staff not only to work together, but to play together and get to know their workmates’ spouses and children.
“If we were going to continue as a self-directed partner-owned company, we needed to attract and keep quality personnel,” Norton said. “We can’t grow if we let significant years of experience walk out the door.
“The company became like family, and we built flexibility into the work environment, a worklife balance. We established paid family leave. Retention improved. And we attracted young professionals. The firm went from eight to fifteen partners. The average age of partners dropped from mid-fifties to forty-five now, among the youngest in the industry.” The move was good for employees, but it accomplished something else. “We were listening to young professionals,” Norton said.
“We tried several audio conferencing brands and routinely experienced feedback and poor microphone pickup that inhibited collaboration, which is vital to our company,” said Ken Lange. “As soon as we learned about the HDL300 and its 8,192 virtual microphones, we knew we had to try it, and sure enough, our problems were solved.”
On the third to last day of 2019, Dell Keepers, aged ninety-five, of Columbia, passed away peacefully, forty years after her husband died. Dell was very accomplished, first raising her children and then working as a reporter for the Columbia Daily Tribune and ending her career as director of public information at Stephens College. She was also involved in numerous charitable endeavors in the Columbia community.
By the end of the decade, WK had grown from 75 employees to 110. All organic. And the firm experienced ten consecutive years of 8 percent growth in business.
“The firm has worked hard to hire the best people,” John Vaclavek noted. “And being able to work with them every day gives the comfort WK can bring a solution to our clients from our people’s depth of knowledge and creativity.”
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Support of United Way agencies in the Columbia and Jefferson City communities reflects a foundational principle that WK will carry forward into the future. WK Archive.
2020s: LOOKING FORWARD
The spirit of helping bodes well for the firm’s next hundred years. You can hear the confidence and optimism in the voices of WK’s people.
ABOVE: WK partners and associates invest more than 1,000 hours annually in support of local philanthropic organizations and groups. WK Archive.
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“Alot of things have changed over the last twenty-plus years,” Jon Class said, “including technology. Gone are the days of lugging around audit cases full of prior year workpapers and sending paper files between offices on a daily basis. The change to a paperless environment was a game-changer for our audit teams, and now we have the ability to work remotely. I can’t wait to see what’s next.”
In 2020, Columbia became Missouri’s fourth most populous and fastest-growing city, with an estimated 126,254 residents. After two decades in which Jefferson City grew by 20 percent, the city’s population stabilized at 43,228.
Williams-Keepers continued growing too. Part of that growth was the August 2020 acquisition of Mid-Missouri Accounting Services, which was based in Mexico, Missouri. Most members of the Mexico firm’s six-person staff transitioned to full-time roles at WK.
Lee Merrick is the most recent accounting professional to join the Williams-Keepers ownership group. She became a partner on January 1, 2023. Lee specializes in financial statement audits of not-for-profit organizations, small businesses, employee benefit plans, and institutions of higher education.
Having been employed previously with a national certified public accounting firm, Lee joined WK in 2013. She graduated summa cum laude from Missouri State University with a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in accounting.
“I love living in Mid-Missouri,” Lee says, “and being involved in the local community. WK was the right fit for me, as it offered an opportunity to grow in my career by working with businesses in the community every day. The main reason I’ve stayed at WK is because of the relationships with clients and coworkers that I’ve developed over the years. I love working with people who genuinely care about each other and their businesses.
“WK has a small-town feel with big-firm opportunities. WK has associates with various specialties, allowing us to better serve our clients and community. My best day at work is spent learning about our clients and their businesses.”
THE NEXT HUNDRED YEARS
Earlier in the process of preparing this history of Williams-Keepers, a partner asked the question, “How many businesses make it to one hundred years old?” According to a 2021 online article published by Family Capital, among all businesses in the United States, approximately 1,000 - less than one-half of one percent - have survived more than 100 years.
In 2023, at one hundred, Williams-Keepers employs approximately sixty certified public accountants with 125 total staff serving eight primary industries. The firm recruits the best CPA graduates from across the region and prepares them for leadership roles to help their clients, their communities, their coworkers, and their families.
“A key to the firm’s future,” John Weaver noted, “is the ability to recruit and retain staff who are capable of continuing our movement toward consulting and expanding deeper relationships with clients. That will allow us to continue to focus on developing meaningful client relationships.”
That spirit of helping bodes well for the firm’s next hundred years. You can hear the confidence and optimism in the voices of WK’s people.
“Every year the firm continues to strive for growth and improvement in many areas,” Lee Merrick said. “WK strives for growth not just financially, but in building relationships, improving culture, and providing client services. I’ve continued to see improvement in all of these areas over the last decade.”
Williams-Keepers celebrates a culture that balances work and family.
“We continue to evolve to promote a healthy family culture and lifestyle,” Nick Mestres said. “This focus has brought tremendous success both financially and personally. Our core values will not change. How we operate to achieve our values constantly will. Adapting to new technology and service opportunities will only increase in time.”
When you get down to it, it’s about people.
“There are many reasons I chose WK as my destination employer and have spent well over twenty years here,” said Ryan Henry. “First and foremost is our people. Having the opportunity to work alongside our dedicated team of profes-
sionals as we serve our clients together has been a terrific experience. Developing relationships with our clients and helping them solve problems has also been very rewarding.”
“Several things have kept me at WilliamsKeepers for thirty-nine years,” Kathy Graessle said. “At first it was the work I was doing and the great people who were my coworkers. But then it was also the ability to provide service to great clients. As I progressed in my career and family, the flexibility Williams-Keepers offered was a much-needed bonus. Williams-Keepers allowed me to have a career and be a mom. Throughout the years, I felt proud to be a part of WilliamsKeepers and proud of what we provide to our staff and clients.”
WK PEOPLE CREATE L ASTING BONDS
“The relationships I’ve formed over the last seventeen years are what make me stay,” Jeremy Morris said. “The challenging and varied nature of the work is great, but not necessarily unique to WK. What is unique are the partners and staff who have given me so much over the years (friendship, guidance, and a helping hand, to name just a few things) and the great clients we are privileged to serve.”
And while WK continues to grow, the culture is here to stay.
“WK is a great size,” said Jessica Lehman. “We are big enough that individuals have the opportunity to develop expertise in specific areas, yet we are small enough that everyone has the ability to lead change.
“We’ve grown a lot in the last sixteen years, and we work with more complex clients than we did when I started, and at the same time we’ve become a lot more flexible with our staff. It’s a more family-friendly environment than ever.”
At Williams-Keepers, the entrepreneurial spirit is healthy. “We want to remain our own business owners and remain in Mid-Missouri,” said Troy Norton. “We have an eighteen-seat conference table, but we have yet to fill every seat.”
WK HELPS
The professionals at WK apply our expertise to help our clients successfully navigate today’s
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CLOCKWISE FROM BOTTOM LEFT: 2020. The sixty-five-year-old amphitheater at Jefferson City’s Riverside Park got a makeover. The venue now welcomes concerts, festivals, large gatherings, and graduations as the CRMU Amphitheater. Missouri Life Magazine. 2021. An extensive renovation project at its Jefferson City office location provided WK partners and associates with new, state-ofthe-art facilities. Jennifer McMorris. 2023. To start 2023, the firm celebrated ribbon-cutting ceremonies with the Jefferson City Area Chamber of Commerce (top right) and the Columbia Chamber of Commerce (bottom right) to commemorate its 100-year anniversary. The firm held other events later in the year to commemorate the milestone. WK Archive.
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complex financial world. As our clients’ trusted advisors, we are committed to being an invaluable resource, applying our professional expertise to deliver exceptional service and results. We deliver on our promise to have a measurable impact on the success of our clients.
Led by Chairman Jeff Echelmeier, WK works together as a family of caring professionals, deeply committed to serving our clients, our employees, our communities, and each other. We take pride in our commitment to our communities, and we operate in a spirit of kindness and generosity.
Integrity is important to WK. We set high standards of professional ethics and behavior for our employees and conduct business in accordance with those standards. We are honest and ethical in all of our interactions, both with clients and with employees.
We value long-term relationships and do our best to make people’s lives easier. We are dedicated to simply “being there” for our clients and employees. We do everything within our capacity to make their lives and businesses more successful and easier to navigate. We are focused on anticipating their needs before they even ask. And we focus on being an invaluable resource to the success of their businesses and careers.
Giving back to our communities through personal work with charitable and business organizations is an important aspect of doing things the “WK way.”
Our employees enjoy being part of a team that does meaningful work for our clients with the satisfaction of knowing that their work is appreciated. They are valued for helping others and are given opportunities to receive personalized career plans along with training and mentoring that will help them become true professionals, doing things the WK Way.
“Over the last thirty-five years, WK has evolved into a firm that matches the best personnel in the firm to the needs of our clients—a one-firm concept,” John Vaclavek said. “No one serves a client on their own.”
WK clients enjoy a relationship with a group of professionals who not only have the expertise to help them, but the compassion to do it in a
OUR PEOPLE: Supporting Our Communities
WK believes helping others is the right thing to do. Members and associates volunteer for local organizations, donate to important causes, and hold leadership positions in civic and charitable organizations. The firm provides employees with the time and resources to make a difference, and we have fun doing it.
Each year the firm hosts the annual “Run the Numbers 5K” benefiting the United Way. But the race is just the beginning.
The WK family is active in religious and civic organizations. The firm’s community service covers a wide spectrum of groups and agencies, including Community-Based Mentoring Program, the Foundation for the Benefit of Helias Catholic High School, Missouri Quality Awards, Daniel Boone Little League, Meals on Wheels of Columbia, Boys and Girls Clubs, Heart of Missouri United Way, United Way of Central Missouri, True North, Grade A Plus, the Voluntary Action Center, Kate’s Heart, Columbia Metro Rotary, Jefferson City Noon Lions Club, the Historic City of Jefferson Foundation, Missouri River Regional Library, Columbia Montessori Society, Missouri Innovation Center, Junior Achievement of Central Missouri, the Boone County Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Committee, Boy Scouts of America, Columbia and JC Chambers of Commerce, American Cancer Society, Capital City Jaycees, Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture, YMCA, River City Habitat for Humanity, the Jefferson City Rape and Abuse Crisis Center, Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri, the Jefferson City Concert Association, and the Mizzou Alumni Association. The list keeps growing!
Williams-Keepers employees consistently complete more than one thousand hours of community service annually. What would you expect from accountants?
ABOVE: 2019. WK Run the Numbers 5K held at Stephens Lake Park. WK Archive.
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way that differentiates WK from the other firms. Clients appreciate the way we anticipate their needs. And we’re proactive at providing ideas and solutions to their problems. Our clients know they can count on us to help them with their compliance needs, but they also understand our goal is to provide them value. We want them to be successful. They appreciate knowing that our firm has their best interests at heart, a trusting relationship neither party takes for granted.
“For me,” Jeff Echelmeier concludes, “one of the most important lessons has been that if you help people be successful, things are going to work out fine for you personally, and they’re going to work out great for the firm as well. Just trying to keep the focus on helping others has led to great results for us.”
With strong roots, a solid workforce, and a hundred years of service, Williams-Keepers LLC is poised to move confidently into the future to address the business needs of a growing Mid-Missouri.
WK HELPS…“I strive every day to help our clients find solutions to their problems and help our staff learn something that will make them more successful in their careers, just like others have done before me.”
—Jon C. Class, CPA, Partner
WK HELPS OUR CLIENTS. WK HELPS OUR PEOPLE. WK HELPS OUR COMMUNITIES.
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WK serves its communities in a variety of ways, often combining volunteer activities with departmental meetings and through United Way Days of Caring. WK Archive.
John Robinson (BJ 1974 from Mizzou) is an Emmy Award-winning writer based in Columbia. A former director of the Missouri Division of Tourism, John has written several road trip books about Missouri.
ACK NOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to the archives of the Columbia Missourian, the Columbia Daily Tribune, the Appleton City Journal, the State Historical Society of Missouri, the Boone County Historical Society, the Historic City of Jefferson, and the Cole County Historical Society. Thanks to David Rawlings, Bea Smith, Don Decker, John Sheehan, Harry Otto, Mariel Liggett, Jeanette Klemme, Dottie Bemboom, Ken Lange, Russ Starr, Stephen C. Smith, and Jeff Echelmeier for their recollections and insight. The members of the WK centennial committee—Troy Norton, Shawn Barnes, Jennifer Backes, and Lyle Rosburg—have been invaluable to the author in providing information and setting up interviews. The author appreciates the valuable historic information from the Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the US Government Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the US Department of the Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Archives (Wartime Taxes), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Carman G. Blough, Richard C. Adkerson, Investopedia, Wikipedia (Abacus), Circulus, Money Thumb (Denise Grier), Family Capital (famcap.com) and Encyclopedia Britannica ( Typewriter). Additionally, on the subject of taxes and taxation, the author found useful information from the National Archives, the Internal Revenue Service, and e-File.
REFERENCES
“200 Years of Accounting History Dates and Events,” Summarized from Various Sources. Provided by James R. Martin, Ph.D., CMA, Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida.
Coil Construction Provides High-Quality Tenant Finish in Columbia for WilliamsKeepers” by Peckham Wright Architects, August 17, 2009.
“Cole County History: Just who is Rex Whitton?” by Sara Lynn Hartman, Historic City of Jefferson. Jefferson City News Tribune, April 25, 2020.
Columbia, Missouri, Images of Our Lives Since 1901. Published by the Columbia Daily Tribune, 2001, in cooperation with the State Historical Society of Missouri and the Boone County Historical Society. Editor: Vicki S. Russell. Associate Editor: Jim Robertson. Columbia Daily Tribune
Publishing. 2001. 280 pages.
“The First Computer,” https://theconversation. com/what-was-the-first-computer
“How the U.S. Accounting Profession Got Where It Is Today: Part I,” by Stephen A. Zeff, Accounting Horizons, Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2003, pp. 189–205.
“Jeff City Bridge.” A presentation of the Jefferson City Noon Rotary.
Jefferson City, Missouri (Images of America) by Dr. Joseph S. Summers and Dottie S. Dallmeyer, Arcadia Publishing, Chicago, 2000. 128 pages.
Jefferson City office renovation photo. Buz Jef ferson City.
John Williams Obituary from The Appleton City Journal, Appleton City, Saint Clair County, Missouri, Thursday, Sept. 15, 1921: Prominent businessman and citizen passes away.
“Memorial: Carman George Blough 1895–1981,” by Maurice Moonitz. The Accounting Review, Volume 57, Number 1 (January, 1982), pages 147–160.
“Milestones in the History of Public Accounting,” by Robert C. Allyn (1965), Woman C.P.A.: Volume 27: Issue 2, Article 3. The Refractories People: A History of the A. P. Green Refractories Co. by Orville H. Read. Published by A. P. Green Refractories Co., 1978.
“Smith Remembered for Accounting, Courtroom Prowess,” by Bondi Wood, Como Magazine, August 21, 2009.
“The Way We Were,” a Columbia Daily Tribune story by John Schneller based on an oral history project by MU students of former chancellor Haskell Monroe.
“WPA Projects.” livingnewdeal.org/projects/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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