Office profile: Los Angeles;

              OFFICE PROFILE:
In 1916, Ha,•itins & Sells established a two-mail office in Los Angeles. The city's population was then under 500,-000. Today, Los Angeles is the largest city of the nation's most populous state. It is, as the Chamber of Commerce will be quick to tell you, a sprawling metro-politan complex of more than 8,000,000 people who travel its vast network of freeways, take clips in swimming pools so numerous they are said to have af-fected some areas' humidity readings, enjoy warm sunshine for most of the year, and generally appreciate the many attractions of California living. Los An-geles today is also one of the nation's fastest growing industrial centers, with its concentration of aircraft, aerospace, and electronics companies and a variety of other industries,
Haskins & Sells' Los Angeles office has more than kept pace with this growth. As the Finn's second largest practice office, its professional staff is exceeded in number only by that of New York. John S. Schumann, who came to Los Angeles from New York in 1957, became partner - in - charge in ig6i, following Malcolm M. Devore, who then moved to the Executive Office.
The early history of the office—indeed its history right through to the late forties—was largely fashioned by Fred-erick F. Halm. Mr, Halm had started his own Los Angeles practice in 1911. Five years later, and 21 years after Mr. Haskins and Mr, Sells established their offices in New York City, he and H & S agreed to merge their practices. Los Angeles thus became the tenth office to be established by the Firm and the third in the West, after San Francisco (1912) and Denver (1915).
The Los Angeles office was located at Seventh and Broadway until 1921, when it was transferred to the then brand-new Pacific Mutual Building at Sixth and Grand, where it remains to this day in the center of the downtown business community. "Downtown" in a city which covers 450 square miles is not a casual stroll from the city limits. From downtown it is about thirty miles to Disneyland to the southeast, over twenty miles to Long Beach to the south, around twenty miles to Santa
Monica to the west, ten miles to Pasa-dena and the Rose Bowl to the north-east, and around thirty miles to the eastern outskirts of the city. Wilshire Boulevard, extending from downtown to the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica, is reputedly one of the longest contin-uous streets in the country.
Mr. Hahn was manager of the Los Angeles office until 192a, when he was admitted to the Firm as a partner. Dur-ing the next twenty-five years he built the practice to the point where, at the time of his retirement, the staff num-bered about 75. During his earlier years he found time to teach account-ing at the University of California, to serve the profession in California in several capacities, and to get in enough practice rounds to tie for the low net score in the golf tournament at the Firm's annual meeting in 1924. He maintained a keen interest in the Los Angeles practice until his death at the age of 79 in 1961.
Los Angeles, judged by the age of its people, is a relatively "young" office. In fact, 1 suppose I was asked to write this (Roberto V. Ongpin, who was on our staff until his recent return to the Philippines, did much of the original drafting) because, with twenty years in the Los Angeles office, I have the long-est service here of any of the partners. Some may have longer records with H & S, but they came here from other H & S offices, and some may have prac-ticed longer in Los Angeles, but they came to II&S through mergers.
One reason for our relative youth is that we have "exported" a number of partners to other offices. Among our "alumni" are Weldon Powell and Mal-colm Devore in the Executive Office, and partners-in-charge of four offices: Alvan B. Richardson, of Philadelphia; Edward L. Carey of Honolulu; Frank-lin N. McClelland of Denver; and Rus-sell P. Shomler of Atlanta.
1 have found it interesting to look back in the files to early clients, to see how they have fared, and to reflect on how close we have been to them for so long.
There is our oldest client, Capitol Milling Company, whom we have served since before the merger in 1916.
LOS ANGELES
By
John C. McCormick
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