RubinBrown: One Firm, A Tradition of Trust

RubinBrown: One Firm

eyes to a fresh new perspective that created a strategic advantage for the firm. This included adopting innovative practices such as creating a formalized list of new client prospects, starting a client newsletter, and developing client seminar programs. Most importantly, Harvey and Mahlon learned to appreciate that CPA firms could do things differently and still be successful. What is evident from the stories of the firm’s early years is that Harvey and Mahlon did not allow the size of the firm to constrain the size of their ideas. Although Harvey was naturally more easygoing and may have been satisfied with remaining a small, local firm, Mahlon, the former WWII veteran and champion wrestler, had plans for growth.

From the beginning, although they didn’t know it as such, Harvey and Mahlon embraced a one-firm culture in which every client was “our client” instead of “my

client” and everyone contributed to one bottom line. The importance of fully embracing a one-firm culture struck home in a major way in 1974 when the firm’s co-founder, Sidney, suffered a fatal heart attack while presenting his opening remarks at the firm’s first annual tax seminar. While his sudden death stunned Harvey and Mahlon as well as the rest of the firm, all of the clients that Sidney represented chose to remain with the firm because they felt the other partners already knew them and their businesses.

SIDNEY GORNSTEIN

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