People in H&S: Edward J. Lill;

              ' T i l
M. he days of tedious detail work are
gone. Trying to compare accounting for
the securities brokerage industry today
with what it was only a few years ago is
like talking about flying the Concorde
compared with a DC-3," Ed Lill, the Firm's
brokerage industry specialist and national
industry director, said recently.
"There's been a revolution in securities
brokerage, a revolution that's still taking
place. And this has affected our profes­sional
relationship with brokerage clients.
Perhaps most important from the point
of view of the staff accountant consider­ing
making a specialty of securities bro­kerage,
the change has been largely to
the good. Some of the most onerous re­quirements
have been eliminated, and
the brokerage industry's strong move
toward automation and diversification
has added new dimensions to the services
we provide for them. To put it simply:
the industry is a lot more interesting today
than it was when I was assigned to my
first brokerage engagement."
But if Ed's entry into the world of
securities brokerage eventually proved
the ideal mating of man and career, its
beginnings were dictated more by chance
than calculated decision.
Edward J. Lill was born in Paterson,
New Jersey and graduated from Passaic
Valley High School before entering
Seton Hall University in South Orange.
An excellent student who majored in
accounting, Ed was elected to the Cross
and Crescent, a highly select honor society
recognizing outstanding achievement in
both academic and extracurricular
activities.
More interested in private industry
than public accounting when he gradu­ated
from Seton Hall (or so he thought at
the time), Ed joined an advanced tech­nology
corporation as a cost analyst.
Before the end of that first summer, how­ever,
he reevaluated his career goals and
decided that public accounting was the
road he really wanted to follow.
After interviews with several of the
large CPA firms, Ed joined the New York
office of Haskins & Sells in September
1953. Ed's early years with the Firm gave
no inkling of his later rise to prominence
in as specialized an area as securities
brokerage.
"My first years with the New York office
gave me the kind of grounding in my
profession that any career-minded ac­countant
really needs," he said. "I was
assigned to engagements for a producer
and distributor of frozen foods, Seabrook
Farms; a large educational institution,
New York University; a hospital, Cornell
Medical Center; a nonprofit organization,
the Marine Historical Association; and a
large chemicals manufacturer. Such
broad experience is valuable from at least
two points of view. In the first place, it
gives an accountant increased proficiency
in many of the techniques of his profes­sion.
You just naturally become more
self-confident when you can handle re­sponsibilities
on a variety of engagements.
Secondly, and a point often overlooked,
you can make a decision about specializ­ing
in an industry or a specific area of
accounting with much more authority if
you've been exposed to a range of experi­ences.
You don't have to depend on
someone telling you: 'Try it, you'll like it.'
You have tried it and you know whether
you like it."
It was while on the chemical company
engagement that Ed met Dorothy Allen.
"My work involved a division that was
preparing to move from New York to
Virginia," Ed recalls. "Dot was from
Virginia and had been sent to New York
for special training prior to the division's
relocation. That was when I met her."
Dorothy returned to Virginia after her
training was completed and Ed stayed in
New York. About a year later, however,
Ed was asked to spend six months in
Virginia on the engagement. He said
yes. Shortly after his second year on the
engagement he asked Dorothy to marry
him. She said yes.
I t was New York partner Carl Sturgis
who introduced Ed to the securities
brokerage industry. "Carl asked me to
be senior accountant on an engagement
for a relatively small brokerage house. I
found the work interesting and the fol-
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PEOPLE IN H&S:
EI)W\R1) JL LILL