Dear Family, Friends, Co-Workers and Clients
As many of you know, I have retired from Origin CPA Group. After some time off I will start finding my next venture. I enjoyed a 29-year career with 22 of those years being a shareholder in the firm. Although 29 years is a long time to spend at one firm, I am humbled by Mary Kay Gonderzick, Stuart Kingsbery, Alex Baris who all had longer careers at the firm and of course, Pam Vogel who has not only been at the firm longer than me but is continuing as an amazing CPA and shareholder.
In my career, I was fortunate to have many wonderful co-workers, fellow shareholders and clients. Several of the first clients I was allowed to talk directly to stuck with me all these years through my learning how to be a professional and learning the intricacies of an ever-changing and complicated tax code. I am so grateful to all the clients I have served who put their trust in me and the firm.
I want to send a special thanks to Stuart and Mary Kay. Stuart for mentoring me and spending countless hours teaching and challenging me. The firm you started in 1980 has adapted but is alive and well. Mary Kay for always being an advocate and for being family. Your leadership, love and support drove the firm culture and made Origin a wonderful place to have a career!
I am proud of my time at Origin. As visionary for Origin, we went through many major changes. Name changes, Kingsbery and Associates, Kingsbery Baris, Kingsbery Baris Vogel, Kingsbery Baris Vogel Nuttall, Kingsbery CPAs and finally Origin CPA Group. We changed from a firm with a focus in Boulder County to a firm that has clients throughout the USA and world. We changed from a do everything CPA firm, to a firm focused on complicated individual taxation, trusts and related entities taking a unique proactive approach. We have changed the deadline experience for our clients and our team. We adopted a Client Communication Coordinator position and hired wonderful CCCs. We changed from billing by the hour to a subscription approach taking billing uncertainty away from our clients. We have developed a team-based approach to allow for an effective succession plan for clients. Most importantly we maintained the family culture of the firm I joined in 1997.
As visionary for Origin, I am also very proud of the creation and evolution of our Atlas personal assistant service. We began with the plan to provide specific accounting adjacent services for individuals. Hiring Jenn Wenande as our first Atlas dedicated team member opened the possibilities for providing true value to our Atlas clients. Working closely with Jenn, we transformed Atlas to a highly professional, team oriented, personal assistant and chief of staff service to give our clients the most valuable commodity, time. Working with the entire Atlas team has been one of the most memorable and rewarding parts of my career.
The last few months have been a bittersweet time for me. It afforded me the opportunity to touch base and say thank you and goodbye to clients. I got the opportunity to spend time with the Origin Team, to cry a little, laugh a lot and to take comfort the firm is in great hands moving forward. Thank you, Chris, Pam, Christine, John and Jenn for the time, effort and work to make the transition positive for clients and for me. I am excited to see the future successes the firm will have under your leadership.
To the entire Origin team, past and present, it was my privilege to connect with you all. We spent countless hours together, supporting each other, laughing, telling stories and truly caring about each other. You all were my favorite part about coming to work. To see smiling faces, hear great stories, sharing successes and enduring failures, it is the personal connections that I miss most.
I am uncertain what the future will hold for me as a second career. I can only hope that whatever it is, it lives up to my career at Origin.
Thank you and farewell.
Brian