Anonymous

Kaplan, Fred

English

eGrove (Univ. of Mississippi)

University of MississippieGroveHaskins and Sells Publications Deloitte Collection1969Office profile: San FranciscoAnonymousFred KaplanFollow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/dl_hsPart of the Accounting Commons, and the Taxation CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Deloitte Collection at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Haskins and SellsPublications by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact egrove@olemiss.edu.Recommended CitationH&S Reports, Vol. 06, (1969 autumn), p. 16-23where the atmosphere is of the Twentieth Century moving fast toward the Twenty-first History, topography, climate and ro-mance have combined for more than a century to make San Francisco one of the magnetic cities of the world. People of every age, occupation and inclination in search of a good life con-verge on this Paris of the West, the city by the Golden Gate. So it is not sur-prising that the San Francisco Office of Haskins & Sells holds a special at-traction for the ambitious and adven-turous accountant. This past year 40 per cent of the 48 recruits who signed on at the San Francisco Office came there through referrals by other H&S offices. Surely the blessings of nature have a great deal to do with the attractions of the San Francisco Bay Area for young people who want to work and grow professionally with a dynamic organi-zation, to live in a culturally stimu-lating atmosphere, and at the same time enjoy the finest of outdoor life and scenic beauty. Tom Graves, part-ner in charge, is enthusiastic about what he calls the cosmopolitan nature of the staff: "There's nothing provincial about our organization, because we draw staff members from schools all over the country. They come to us from Massachusetts, Oregon, Montana, Michigan, Indiana and Iowa—just to name a few who are arriving this week. We are trying to capitalize on the at-tractiveness of the Bay Area in order to get an outstanding staff. We are definitely not ingrown. There is a lib-erality of view here, a tolerance that you don't find to the same degree in other parts of the country." Built on a fingertip of land between the Pacific Ocean and one of the world's greatest natural harbors, the city of San Francisco is confined by its water boundaries. It has grown up-ward—up the steep sides of its many hills and up in towering buildings that from a distance resemble a profusion of giant gray and white building blocks standing on end. The metropolitan area of San Francisco has spread south-ward, down the peninsula to dozens of communities whose inhabitants surge into the city for work in the mornings. It reaches across the great bridges into Marin County to the north and to Oakland, Berkeley and other East Bay points. San Francisco boosters do not exag-gerate when they claim the city has a climate all its own—moody and whim-sical, yet invigorating, like perpetual spring. Cleansing drafts of air from the Pacific sweep in through the Golden Gate, as if from a giant natural air conditioner. Temperatures seldom rise above 75° or drop below 45°, so cool-weather clothes are comfortable the year around. The only weather feature about which San Franciscans can com-plain is the fog, which is borne in from the Pacific Ocean by the morning breeze, lingers awhile and then is swiftly swept away. San Francisco, one of the world's greatest shipping ports, is also the fi-Copyrighted -- License from Black Starm nancial and insurance capital of the West and is "the city" to people who live in a large sector of the central Pacific coast. Ever since the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill set off the great California Gold Rush of 1849, San Francisco has been the focus of eco-nomic and social life of this booming part of the United States. And today the entire region is active, surging with fresh life, new ideas, and dynamic, im-patient, imaginative people. The re-straints of time-worn custom and in-grained habit are almost invisible here. The thrust and power stemming from a growing population, highly motivated, well educated and trained, stamps the life style of northern California. Tom Graves is growth-minded: "Our primary idea is to build a large staff of capable people to capitalize on the California growth situation. You can do this only by providing an organization big enough and strong enough. We believe that you should balance the strength of your staff according to the Thomas J. Graves, partner in charge, on the stairway leading from the entrance hall of the San Francisco Office to its floor below. Eye-catching sculpture woven of copper and brass wire by Ruth Asawa dominates the stairwell. Mr. Graves selected architect Lloyd Flood to decorate the office, in which he employed sculpture, graphics and unusual ornamental objects. Shopping at Gump's, traditionally a favorite stopping place for visitors and San Franciscans, mail clerk Marge Quan (I.) and Carol Bruce of the audit staff admire imported bowls. An H&S client through its parent company, Crowell Collier and Macmillan, Gump's on Post Street is one of many inviting shops within a short walking distance of the H&S office. In the shadow of the Berkeley Campanile, Tim Carlson, senior accountant, tells Richard Reierson (r.) some of the fine points of the University of California engagement on Richard's first working day with H&S after graduating from the University of Iowa. Copyrighted -- License from Black StarCopyrighted -- License  from Black Starwork you would like to have, and not to the level of work you have at the moment." Tom says that he spends much of his time with "people problems." Last year he and Charlie Steele, partner in charge of personnel, met and discussed careers with about 150 potential recruits. They found that acceptance rates have been good. After the 1969 recruits had joined the staff, H&S San Francisco had nine women accountants. Two of them, Susan Cold and Lesley Sweeney, had already married H&S colleagues. As of mid-1969, the office had 150 professionals, and 12 others were in the San Francisco MAS Office. Service hours have risen dramatically, having increased 50 per cent in the last two years alone. H&S San Francisco dates back to 1912 and for many years the office was in the Alexander Building At main office of the Southern Pacific Company, partner Gary R. West (r.) listens and watches as Herman A. Nelson, S. P. vice president and general auditor, demonstrates the electrically operated wall map which illustrates the computer system the railroad uses to keep track of the rolling stock on its 14,000-mile rail network. A veteran CPA in San Francisco, N. Loyall McLaren keeps a busy desk, as pictures of his old personal friends, former Presidents Eisenhower and Hoover, look over his shoulder. Mr. McLaren joined forces with H&S San Francisco in 1952 through the McLaren, Goode, West & Co. merger. He recalls the day in 1906 when the big earthquake struck San Francisco. In the hospital at the time recovering from an appendectomy, he awoke as his wheeled bed rolled across the room. 18 Copyrighted -- License from Black StarCopyrighted -- License from Black Staron Montgomery Street. In 1955, three years after the significant merger with McLaren, Goode, West & Co., the en-larged organization shifted to the Equi-table Life Building and stayed there for 12 years until the opening of its splendidly appointed new quarters on the 19th and 20th floors of the Wells Fargo Building on Montgomery Street. Like all great urban areas, the San Francisco Bay region has its share of social problems. Tom Graves is a mem-ber of the Accountants Committee for Urban Action, which has set up a pilot project for the entire state of Califor-nia to find ways of channeling advice to businessmen among minorities who are trying to get started. An announce-ment of this project sent to all members of the H&S staff met with an enthusi-astic response. Many volunteered to take part in the program. 19 An after office hours walk in Golden Gate Park brings Dan and Susan Cold to a vantage point where they can see ships pass through the Golden Gate. The newlywed accountants met in the H&S office. At client Kay Homes in Foster City, south of San Francisco on the Bay, Leroy C. Peters (r.), assistant contract manager of the parent company, Kaufman and Broad, one of the biggest home building firms in the world, talks building methods with Dick Rosevaere, H&S senior. At times in its busy season, this client using the most modern methods completes development houses at the rate of four a day. About 75 per cent of Kay houses are sold before completion to buyers who flock to the sites during construction. Copyrighted -- License from Black StarFirst faces and voices to greet visitors are those of Judy Hinman (I.) and Virginia Sali, who receive callers in person and by telephone. Aluminum cable is wound onto a reel at the San Leandro wire and cable plant of Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation, client of the San Francisco Office. John Rooney (r.), Electrical Products Division Operations Controller, shows Don Faries, H&S principal, the final steps in production. San Francisco Office people have no need to turn to the Firm for recreation, there being so much social and cultural action outside the office walls. There are water sports in several directions from Montgomery Street, there is ski-ing in season in the Sierras to the east. There is golf and sailing and fishing and tennis and some of the finest gar-dening in the United States. The office holds an annual dinner-dance at the Meadow Club in Marin County and it also stages an annual golf outing at Silverado Country Club, in the Napa Valley. Upon entering the San Francisco Office one comes into a beautiful new world. In a sense, the effect is as if the visitor had stepped into an art gallery. "Haskins & Sells" is marked on the door, and two receptionists who dou-ble as switchboard operators are in plain view, but the rest of the reception area hardly seems like that of a public accounting firm. A large, brightly col-ored modern painting built of geo-metrical design themes covers much of one wall. Recessed overhead lights are directed so as to emphasize a delicate sculpture of woven wire hanging alongside the stairway, an ingenious wall-hanging clock (made in England around 1780), a number of carved stone mill wheels from Japan, an an-tique bronze table lamp from India and a large wooden Japanese hibachi with a copper liner holding a spreading growth of graceful ferns. The loveli-ness of this introduction to the H&S San Francisco Office is equaled by the colorful and tasteful decorations that are scattered through the rooms and corridors of the H&S office. Mr. Graves is proud of the new look about the premises and pays tribute to Lloyd Flood, consulting architect. "Lloyd Flood has a wonderful sense of color," he says. "We believed it was time to get away from the beige and brown look of the typical public accounting firm office. Basically, the choice of decor in this office is Lloyd Flood's. He did a great job of creating the atmosphere we were seeking." The physical appearance of the San Francisco Office and the atmosphere it creates are a characteristic part of the San Francisco Office story. The sur-roundings give a visitor the sense that this place is big league, it is moving with the times, it has class. The decor is tasteful, not a vulgar display of spend-ing. It gives one the feeling that the men and women working here are top-notchers in whose professional compe-tence one can have faith. The clientele of the San Francisco Office is broad and reflects the range of private and public activities of this section of the country. Shipping, the oldest big business of the port, is rep-resented by the States Steamship Com-pany, rai lroading by the Southern Pacific and the Western Pacific, power by the Pacific Gas and Electric Com-pany, lumbering by the Santa Cruz Lumber Company. One of the biggest public institution audit engagements in the country is that of the University of California, headquartered at Berkeley across the San Francisco Bay, but com-prising a complex of more than a dozen campuses throughout the state. The special flavor of the West is sup-plied by clients such as the Home-stake Mining Company (which is still in the gold mining business after 92 years), the E & J Gallo Winery, the Sun-Copyrighted -- License from Black Star21 l \ 1 1 1 Copyrighted -- License from Black StarJoe Jaeger (r.), principal on the Leslie Salt Company engagement, and Walter L. Fasolis, plant manager, examine a handful of rough salt extracted from the waters of San Francisco Bay by the ages-old evaporation method. Behind them a bulldozer piles up a hill of salt to be scooped up by the conveyor and moved to the processing and refining plant (r. rear). Only a small portion of the Leslie product ends up as table salt, the vast majority being used in industry and in highway-driveway ice melting. Al Lanka, principal, and his wife Dr. Darlene Lanka at the newborn nursery at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco. Darlene, a graduate of the University of California Medical School, is serving her third year of residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Kaiser. She and Al met on the beach where Darlene was a lifeguard. 22 Copyrighted -- License from Black StarCopyrighted -- License from Black StarMaid Raisin Growers in Fresno, Dye Creek Cattle Company (see page 24) and the Shasta Forests in the northern part of the state. There are food pro-cessors, land developers, builders, drug manufacturers, metal fabricators, pub-lishers, hospitals, brokerage houses, banks and just about everything else that issues financial statements. Bigness and newness are character-istic of private and public enterprise in the part of the country served by the San Francisco Office of H&S. Residents of the Golden State are getting used to being first in population among the fifty states of the Union, and there is no end in sight to the growth of any-thing you can name. People on retire-of the Twentieth Century moving fast toward the Twenty-first. Private flying is a way of life for businessmen hopping into San Fran-cisco for meetings and out again across 100 to 400 miles of fertile ranchland to call on a customer, or to get home for dinner. No one is stuck with an indus-trial plant designed by his grandfather to compete in the steam and muleteam days. Computers, glass walls, shiny aluminum, big parking lots and nearby airstrips are the hallmarks of California enterprise now. It is in this kind of environment that Tom Graves and his colleagues in the Wells Fargo Building are working and planning and building. • 23 ment income flock here for the climate, the recreation, and in the more remote areas, the quiet of nature. Younger types looking for a variety of excite-ments make the campus and the city scenes. Theaters and concerts and art shows flourish, posters adorn buildings and utility poles, new publications flut-ter from the presses and duplicators, and the highways and airways bring in more settlers every day. The oldest man-made things about are the Spanish Missions, which date back to the 18th century—oldest, that is, if you discount the brass plate now in the Bancroft Library at Berkeley, which is believed by some historians to have been left behind by Sir Francis Drake as a token of his claim to this land in the name of good Queen Eliza-beth I. Drake's plate and the Missions aside, however, the atmosphere here is A planning session in the conference room brings together (I. to r.) Ronald Shepherd, senior responsible for assignments and scheduling; Henry Jacquemet, principal for assignments; Al Singelyn, personnel director, who coordinates recruiting; Charles G. Steele, partner in charge of personnel and training; and Clarence W. Houghton, principal in charge of training. Copyrighted -- License from Black Star

Office profile: San Francisco

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Office profile: San Francisco

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