People in H&S; Bud Sullivan;

              I'll bet I am the only partner in Haskins
& Sells who accepted an offer to work
at H&S while I was being interviewed
by the managing partner of a Peat,
Marwick, Mitchell office."—That isn't
the only thing that is unusual about
Bud Sullivan, partner in charge of our
Indianapolis Office, but it will do for
openers.
This extraordinary circumstance oc­curred
in Omaha eleven years ago when
Bud was twenty-three years old and
just one year out of Creighton Univer­sity.
He had passed the CPA examina­tion,
worked for more than a year with
a local firm, and needed just eight more
months of work experience in his home
state of Nebraska to satisfy the require­ments
for certification there. Bud
wanted to join H&S. The trouble was
that his father, Joseph T. Sullivan, was
a partner in the Omaha Office of H&S,
having come to the Firm a few years
earlier through the Irwin-Imig Co. mer­ger.
There was the Firm rule barring a
father-son combination in the same
practice office.
Bud's dilemma: sign on with another
firm in order to get in those required
eight months? Or move to another
state?
At the final moment, Mr. Imig tele­phoned
Bud at the Peat, Marwick,
Mitchell office to say that the H&S
Executive Office had given permission
for him to work as a staff accountant in
Omaha for the few months needed for
his CPA certificate. Then he was to
transfer elsewhere.
The following summer, in 1961, Mr.
and Mrs. Edward M. Sullivan and their
three small children drove into Indi­anapolis
to start a new life. Now, ten
short years later, Bud and Judy Sullivan
have five boys and one girl, ranging
from thirteen down to five years of age,
and Bud, at thirty-four, is well into his
second year as partner in charge of the
Indianapolis Office.
The intensity with which he throws
himself into the task of learning all
about his adopted city, its personalities,
its business life and its social life seems
to come from a fund of energy that is
popularly ascribed to youth, even
though some men retain it into late
middle age. On the other hand, the
partner in charge of our Indianapolis
Office has a grasp of his area of opera­tions,
a confidence, that is more fre­quently
associated with middle age. So
he appears to have it both ways.
PEOPLE IN H&S
Bud Sullivan
Bud's father gave him his nickname
at birth, in memory of a deceased
uncle. Everyone calls him "Bud." You
don't hear "Mr. Sullivan" or "Edward"
around the office or around town. Bud
learned fast from his predecessor, Bill
Quinlan, who was partner in charge of
the Indianapolis Office until 1970,
when he transferred to the Executive
Office to work closely with other EO
partners on technical matters and pol­icies.
In fact, Bud cannot say too much
in praise of his former mentor and
chief, whom he credits more than any
other man in his professional growth.
But there is obviously something in
his body chemistry, an inner spark, that
keeps Bud Sullivan constantly on the
go now, and probably did from his first
days in the profession. He started out
in college with the idea of taking a law
degree, then switched to an accounting
major after his first courses in account­ing
aroused his enthusiasm. Looking
back now on his boyhood, he thinks
that being the son of a CPA did not
play a major role, at least consciously,
in his decision to enter the profession.
As Bud remembers that period:
"My father didn't discourage me, but
he didn't exactly over-encourage me
toward accounting either. We certainly
didn't talk accounting around the din­ner
table. Still, you often wonder
whether or not your choice of a career
was completely objective."
o ne look at a partial list of Bud
Sullivan's activities proves his state­ment
that he is, by temperament, "an
outside man—I don't like to be desk­bound
too much." He does stay "inside"
to direct his office, with three princi­pals,
twenty staff accountants, a couple
of student interns, two secretaries and
a receptionist. But he is a great believer
in getting out of the office in order to
serve his community, enjoy recreation
with friends and build the practice.
He is involved heavily in the work
of the Urban League and serves on the
board of the Mayor's Committee on
Community Involvement, whose func­tion
it is to advise minority business­men
on getting started on a sound basis. „
Bud is also on the board of the Indi­anapolis
Business Development Foun­dation,
which channels seed money to
minority entrepreneurs.
"Sullivan Was Here" might well be
found scratched on the walls of numer­ous
clubs and organizations around
town, because Bud belongs to a good
many. Among them are Kiwanis, the
Indianapolis Press Club, the Indianap­olis
Athletic Club, the Antelope Club
(which holds an annual wild game
dinner), the Meridian Hills Country
Club (an H&S client) and the Crooked
Stick Country Club.
Bud doesn't just join. He makes the
scene regularly—playing squash, tennis
and golf, or joining in a luncheon pro­gram.
He speaks in public easily and
well. Occasionally he takes up a light
plane, having been bitten by the flying
bug and accepting piloting as a chal­lenge
to his nerve and skill.
But Mr. Outside in Indianapolis
pays close attention to the inside of his
own organization. He believes in team­work,
and says that the goals of the
office can best be reached if everyone is
taken into his confidence and knows
where they are heading as a group.
"Every assistant on the staff should
know our goals," Bud says, "and in this
office they do." He is aiming to build
the office practice to one requiring 50
or even 75 people within the decade,
he says. The morale of his crew is ex­cellent,
Bud believes. At least, the
spirits were really high at the last
Christmas party, where the office en­gaged
a rock 'n' roll combo called "The
Peppermint Apple Bush"—pretty far
out music for our Firm, Bud thinks.
Does he relax at home? Not much.
Pop, Mom and the six Sullivan kids
have just voted 7-1 to build a swim­ming
pool, and that will mean a lot of
work for Bud, doubling as swim instruc­tor,
lifeguard and pool attendant. As if
it weren't enough to keep up with
Marti, Mike, Joe, Dan, Pat and Matt
on dry land—"a basketball team and
one cheerleader," says Bud, not with­out
paternal pride. •
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