I was born in Roper Hospital, Charleston, SC, on June 16, 1953. I grew up on a dairy farm on the outskirts of St. Stephen, a little town located in northern Berkeley County. I am the second oldest of four children. My mother was a schoolteacher for all of her working life. My father currently lives on Lake Moultrie, just north of Moncks Corner.

In the summer of 1961, I had just turned eight when my parents packed the four of us children up and moved us from the dairy farm to a two bedroom apartment complex on the campus of Atlantic Christian College in Wilson, North Carolina. We lived in Wilson for three years while my father completed his college degree.

I attended public schools until my parents sent me to Carlisle Military School in Bamberg, SC. I played basketball and baseball while at Carlisle and graduated as my class Salutatorian.

I graduated from the University of South Carolina (cum laude) in 1976 with a degree in History and Political Science. I then received my Master’s Degree in Accounting from South Carolina in 1977.

After finishing college, my first job was as a Staff Accountant with a firm (Haskins & Sells) which is known today as, DeloitteToucheTomatsua, Certified Public Accountants.

In 1980 through 1996, I worked as a Corporate Controller, Vice President of Finance for a small chain of auto dealerships, owned a construction business and worked again in the car business.

I quickly learned that with so many CPAs in Charleston, I had to differentiate myself from the others by finding a specialty area to concentrate my practice. It happened by chance, when a new bookkeeping client I had just acquired in May of 1996, came to me owing the IRS $90,000. We settled his debt for $42,000 through the Offer in Compromise program.

We have been fortunate enough to have survived for over 10 years now and to have served over 200,000 clients. Through the hard work and dedication of our employees we became the nation’s largest tax representation company early on in our existence and I am proud to say that we have maintained that status despite many challenges.