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For Bob Pivik, the multifaceted demands of his position as Executive Office partner responsible for recruitment and college relations have been as broad and varied as his career path in Haskins & Sells has been concentrated in geographic scope. Born in Renton, Pennsylvania, about thirty miles east of Pittsburgh, Robert W. Pivik was one of three sons and a daughter born to a man who, in his midthir-ties, turned from coal mining to a successful career in local government. An accomplished saxophone player, the young Bob Pivik had set his sights on becoming a professional musician. By the time he began his senior year in high school, however, his career interests had been refocused, and thus it was that Bob entered Penn State University as a business major who quickly turned his attention to accounting. His first contact with the Firm was through an H&S Foundation Scholarship Award which he received for academic achievement while an undergraduate. A closer look at H&S and the realities of public accounting came in his senior year, when Bob was a winter intern in our Pittsburgh office. Like most outstanding students, Bob was courted by recruiters from the Big Eight public accounting firms. After visiting the different firms, he narrowed his choice down to two, chose H&S, and began with our Pittsburgh office in 1959 after graduating with honors. The years in Pittsburgh were busy ones for Bob and his wife Yvonne, whom he had married in 1960. As the family grew at home (a son Keith was born in 1961 and a daughter Sharon in 1965), Bob's responsibilities multiplied at the office. It was those early years in Pittsburgh that played such a vital role in shaping his outlook toward his chosen career, Bob says. "One of the reasons I find public accounting so interesting is the variety of challenges one is faced with—and this was certainly the case in Pittsburgh. All the opportunity one could want was there," he said. Staff accountants were encouraged to take on as much responsibility as they could handle, Bob recalls. "I worked on such engagements as PPG Industries, Crucible Steel and Ormet Corporation and within two years found I was performing at a senior level. I suppose you could say the office had the perfect formula— give the staff the opportunity for growth and as much encouragement as necessary to want to grow." In 1967 Bob, then a manager, reached a turning point in his career. Partner Colin Park, for whom Bob had worked earlier on a special project, had been asked to establish a new Professional Education and Development Department in EO. Colin chose seven people, Bob among them, to help launch the forerunner to today's Continuing Education group. " Colin's request that I come to EO was something my wife and I gave much serious thought to," Bob said. "Both of us were born and raised in Pennsylvania and had lived there all our lives—and we were expecting our third child, Tracey Moving to the New York City area meant a major change, but we decided that you grow by having to make new friends, by sometimes being forced to make these adjustments to your way of life. And the professional opportunity the move offered certainly was important in our thinking and our decision to come to EO." After two years with PE&D, Bob j oined the Mergers and Acquisitions group, then headed by partner Hugh M. Eggan. When Hugh left EO in 1972 to be partner in charge in Cleveland, Bob was put in charge of the group. He was admitted to partnership that same year. In 1974 Bob was asked to assume responsibility for recruitment and college relations. "This was basically a new post," he said, "directed primarily to the planning, coordinating and assisting in the implementation of a long-range Firm program aimed at ensuring future availability of a pool of quality people from which the Firm could recruit its future leaders. "Certainly recruitment has always been of great concern to those at the top levels of management. No public accounting firm can maintain the high level of professionalism H&S has unless it can attract the best graduates—and this presupposes that high-caliber students will be there for us to recruit. One of the interesting aspects of the public accounting profession in this country is the fact that the CPA firms play almost as important a role in ensuring this continuing supply of superior 'recruits' as do the colleges and universities. Certainly the emphasis placed on our recruitment and college-relations program at the very highest levels of the Firm is the clearest indication of just how important it is held to be. "From a more practical point of view," Bob points out, "you have to remember that Haskins & Sells recruits actively at some four hundred campuses and talks to about fourteen thousand students every year. Although the prime recruitment responsibility is at the practice-office level, close coordination between the offices and EO is vital to the long-term success of this effort." Bob puts considerable emphasis on maintaining personal contact with the academic community. "There's so much to be done," he said, "and personal contact is important. The only way you can really find out what the deans and faculty at the schools are concerned with, what they think must be done, is to sit down and talk with them. It takes a lot of time, but it's worth it." Much of Bob's time has gone into developing a more-integrated internal program. "I'm putting a lot of emphasis on establishing a broad-based communications link with leaders in the academic community. At the same time I'm trying to be equally effective as a coordinator of our recruitment and college-relations efforts," he said. As part of this program, Don LaBoskey, formerly personnel director with our Los Angeles office, became permanently attached to Bob's recruitment and college relations section as national coordinator two years ago. Jim Older, a member of the EO personnel department, is also an important part of the team, providing the needed administrative control over many of the ongoing projects. At the present time several promising programs are being tested. A special summer internship program which holds much promise for the future was initiated this year. (Editor's note: A report on this internship program will appear in an upcoming issue of H&S Reports.) A recently
Object Description
Title |
People in H&S: Robert W. Pivik |
Author |
Anonymous |
Personal Name |
Pivik, Robert W. Park, Colin I. Eggan, Hugh M. LaBoskey, Donald P. Older, James C. |
Office/Department |
Haskins & Sells. Executive Office Haskins & Sells. Pittsburgh Office Haskins & Sells. Los Angeles Office |
Citation |
H&S Reports, Vol. 13, (1976 autumn), p. 06-07 |
Date-Issued | 1976 |
Source | Originally published by: Haskins & Sells |
Rights | Copyright and permission to republish held by: Deloitte |
Type | Text |
Format | PDF page image with corrected OCR scanned at 400 dpi |
Collection | Deloitte Digital Collection |
Digital Publisher | University of Mississippi Library. Accounting Collection |
Date-Digitally Created | 2010 |
Language | eng |
Identifier | HSReports_1976_Autumn-p6-7e |