People in H&S: Thomas J. Graves;

              People in H&S
Thomas J* Graves
San Francisco partner in charge Thomas
J. Graves is a man accustomed to being
involved in many of the innovations and
important decisions of both the Firm and
the profession. One of the early tax spe­cialists
in Haskins & Sells, he went on to
become the first person to coordinate the
Firm's tax practice on a nationwide basis.
It was Tom Graves who was named
partner in charge in Washington, D.C.
when that office was established. He
served as a member of an advisory com­mittee
to the Commissioner of Internal
Revenue, as well as chairman of the
AICPA taxation committee that was the
first to attempt to define the role of the
CPA in tax matters. Now, as head of one
of the Firm's largest offices, he has helped
spur the growth of our practice in the
nine years of his tenure there.
A native of Tell City, Indiana, Tom
attended the University of Notre Dame
at the same time as several other H&S
partners, such as Tom Hogan, Phil Sand-maier,
Larry Walsh and Lou MacKenzie.
"I didn't know them at the time!' Tom
says, "since in those days dormitories were
divided up by class, and you usually had
fewer friends outside your immediate
peer group." While his original goal was
to become an attorney, he also took
courses in business and found himself
doing exceedingly well in accounting.
He graduated summa cum laude, which
helped prompt his decision to make a
career of public accounting.
Offered a position by the Chicago office
in 1938, Tom, like most young account­ants,
began with audit work, occasionally
picking up a tax assignment. When he was
drafted during World War II, he went to
Officer Candidate School and was
assigned to the Quartermaster Corps,
largely as a result of his accounting back­ground.
Half of the 800 men in his OCS
class applied for a job involving IBM
"electric accounting machines," and Tom
was one of the ten finally selected for the
assignment.
Sent to the Philadelphia Quartermaster
Depot as assistant to the officer in charge
of the Machine Accounting Section, he
was soon promoted to the number one
position. "This gave me the opportunity
when still quite young to be an adminis­trator,
with about 250 people reporting
to me. It was, if not an exciting experience,
a valuable one."
Returning to the Chicago office at the
end of the war, Tom was soon made a
principal (the term for manager then).
John Queenan, then still several years
away from being named managing part­ner
of the Firm, proposed that Tom be­come
a tax specialist and outlined a plan
for building the necessary exposure and
recognition on a nationwide basis. "I
started out on the speaking circuit," Tom
recalls, "without really knowing too much
about my subject. I felt secure with the
prepared material, but I hoped no one
would ask a question that I would not be
able to answer." With much study and
hard work, as well as natural ability, he
progressed quickly. In 1953 he became a
partner in the Firm.
Haskins & Sells had recently rented an
office in Washington, D.C. held down by
a secretary and one manager. In 1955
Tom was asked to take charge of that
office, observe the situation and make
recommendations for its future. "Of
course, my very presence constituted a
50-percent increase in personnel," Tom
says with a smile. "After analyzing what
was going on, I realized that we could
transform this office by adding a practice
office to the important service function.
I organized the tax work, established con­tact
with the Internal Revenue Service
and sought out clients—borrowing staff
from the Baltimore office as I needed it!'
In 1957, with the Washington office
functioning smoothly and Ed Robertson
newly appointed partner in charge, Tom
moved to Executive Office to coordinate
the Firm's tax practice. He was again in
a position for innovation, unencumbered
by a predecessor or long-established
policy. This gave him the chance to initiate
programs that remain the mainstay of
today's tax practice. Tom worked closely
with EO partners Emmett Harrington,
Everett Shifflett and Weldon Powell as
he set out to ascertain who the potential
specialists were, arrange for the dissem­ination
of information and pinpoint the
realities of the practice-office require­ments.
Because the Firm's practice was grow­ing
and qualified people could not be
spared by the practice offices, Tom did
not bring many "trainees" into EO on a
formal basis. He did recruit several men,
however, including Milt Kupfer, whom he
had known in the Chicago office and
who now heads the New York tax prac­tice,
and Hugh Garnett, now a professor
at the University of West Florida in Pen-sacola,
who was the guiding force behind
the development of the international tax
practice. Tom built an organization solid
enough to carry on without him—the true
test of administrative leadership.
When Mike Chetkovich was selected
as managing partner of the Firm, Tom was
asked to take over his duties as partner
in charge of the San Francisco office.
Another challenge—another affirmative
response—and Tom was off to the "City
by the Bay." During 1966 while the two
men were both in San Francisco, Tom
prepared himself for his new responsi­bilities.
He also began to plan a new office,
and started by signing a lease in the Wells
Fargo building on Montgomery Street,
just a few blocks from Union Square.
After interviewing four architects, he se­lected
Lloyd Flood, who seemed most in
tune with his own feeling about office
decor. "I wanted an image of a forward-looking
firm, not something stuffy. I
hoped to establish a look that would be
'conservatively contemporary,' a profes­sional
atmosphere that would be upbeat
and convey that message to the people
who worked in it!'
As he walks through the dramatically
lighted corridors, pointing out the
Oceanic sculpture, lacquered Chinese
cabinets and pieces by contemporary local
artists, calling special attention to the
conference room with its unique table
and elegant Italian chairs, Tom is clearly
at home in the eclectic environment of
the office.
Acknowledging that there was a good
foundation of substantial clients at the
time he became head of the office, Tom
adds, "Our growth has been more than
satisfactory, bringing us from the fifth
largest office in the Firm to the third. The
potential was there; the whole country
was booming in the late sixties, and this
area was doing particularly well. We
worked hard to take full advantage of
the opportunities."
If this sounds simple on paper, it is cer­tain
that generating this sort of enthu­siasm
requires a special skill. The partner
in charge must know how to motivate his
people, how to excite them about the
chances for advancement. Tom does this
by showing an open interest, getting di-