People in H&S: Malcolm Devore;

              People in H&s
Malcolm Devore
More than forty years ago, Malcolm
M. Devore chose Haskins & Sells with
a systematic determination that is char­acteristic
of the partner who today co­ordinates
the Firm's practice in the
United States with quiet efficiency.
It was 1929, and business was headed
for trouble. He had graduated in June
from the University of California at
Berkeley, but had missed the ceremo­nies
because he was touring Japan with
the varsity baseball team, on which
he had played second base for three
years. He asked an uncle, an officer of
a leading San Francisco bank, to find
out which was the best national public
accounting firm in San Francisco. The
word came back it was Haskins & Sells,
so he applied there, and there only.
He waited until the following busy
season for an opening and reported for
work on January 2, 1930, taking college
courses and temporary work mean­while.
One job that had helped see him
through college was distributing the
San Francisco Chronicle to newsboys,
which meant getting up at 3:30 daily.
A second job kept him up till midnight
twice a week. Inevitably, one day he
fell asleep at the wheel of his news
truck and hit a fire hydrant. His super­visor
advised blaming the steering
mechanism; otherwise he might lose
his job and have to leave college. He
took counsel with himself for 24 hours
and decided to tell the police the truth,
though as it happened they never in­vestigated.
"It was a turning point,"
he recalls. "I never had trouble with
moral decisions after that experience."
Those nights without much sleep
would stand Malcolm in good stead
when World War II left the Firm
shorthanded. By then he was in the
Los Angeles Office. He had gone down
temporarily in 1939 to work under
Weldon Powell on the National Fund­ing
Corporation of California engage­ment,
where he displayed such re­sourcefulness
and intelligence that a
permanent transfer was arranged. He
was appointed principal in 1940 and
was admitted to partnership on June
1, 1945. He was in charge of the Los
Angeles Office from 1957 to 1961.
His next transfer, twenty-one event­ful
years after the first, came about
similarly after temporary assignment.
One of his partners, since retired, had
suggested to him that he was needed in
the Executive Office. "You know," Mal­colm
replied, "I am a native Calif or-nian;
I love my state and the Los
Angeles Office, and my family loves
California. But if I am needed in the
EO, then I shall go."
Shortly thereafter, John Queenan,
who had been nominated president of
the American Institute of CPAs, asked
Malcolm to help in the administration
of the Firm during his presidency. The
Devores came to New York for a year,
but as Mr. Queenan explains, "Malcolm
made himself so useful around here
that he's been here ever since."
He continued, nevertheless, to va­cation
in the West. Very much a fam­ily
man, he and his wife, Edythe, and
their children went fishing together in
the high Sierras virtually every summer
for fifteen years. Today, son Paul is a
principal in charge of the Medford
Office and Robert is on the San Fran­cisco
staff. Daughter Meredith is Mrs.
Kent B. Lombard of San Jose, Cali­fornia.
Overall there are eleven grand­children,
all clamoring for bedtime
stories when Malcolm comes to visit.
The years in Los Angeles had been
years of growth, as indeed all of Mal­colm
Devore's life has been and con­tinues
to be. He remembers his early
mentor, Weldon Powell, as "the finest
mind in public accounting in our gen­eration.
No one could work with him
without the greatest respect and desire
to emulate him." It was Weldon Powell
who encouraged him to become active
in professional societies. He served the
California CPA Society and the Amer­ican
Institute of CPAs on committees,
becoming president in California in
1957-58 and vice president of the In­stitute
in 1965-66. He has also been
active in his home communities in Los
Angeles and now Greenwich, Connec­ticut,
particularly in church affairs in