Chairman and Managing Partner Watson
Rice LLP, New York
I’ve always tried to be a positive
thinker, have a good attitude and to
make a difference. I say our firm is like a train
that’s moving down the track, mobilizing our team
to be the best we can be in serving our clients,
making opportunities for others and creating
value. As we move down the track, we pick up great
people and we obtain the talents. We acquire the
resources and the tools to propel us to our
destination.
I’ve worked with the audit committee of
the Ronald McDonald House of New York
for at least 20 years. It’s a place where hope has
a home, for families of children undergoing
treatment for cancer. I also began working to
provide hope through cancer research, education
and prevention. In 2000, I set up The Hadnott
Foundation Inc., which supports programs at
several New York cancer centers. Our programs and
services weren’t in time to save my wife, Earlene,
who battled breast cancer for two years and died
from treatment complications. But I figure they
will be in time to save other folks.
I grew up in the 1950s and early ’60s in
Prattville, Ala., a small town outside
Montgomery. There was not a lot of opportunity for
black people then. I could pick cotton or I could
dig ditches. My hands were too soft for the one
and my back not strong enough for the other. So I
joined the Air Force for four years. I knew I
wanted to go to college on the GI Bill, and I
wanted to take care of my mother, who had put us
through school by cleaning houses. When I got out
of the Air Force, I went to Bronx Community
College in New York, where I did quite well in
accounting courses. The professor always talked
about what you could do in accounting, the
difference you could make and how you could serve
your clients and do very well economically. And so
I said, hey, this is my field.
I got my accounting degree from Baruch
College and worked for Wolf & Co.
with one of their biggest clients in the New York
area, Grumman Aircraft, on Long Island. Otherwise,
the jobs were very bleak at that time, and I was
lucky to start out at a medium-size firm. I
finished my master’s degree at Iona College in New
Rochelle and worked four years in the AICPA’s CPE
Division as a technical manager. There, I met Tom
Watson, who was one of the first black persons to
sit on boards of accountancy, in Ohio and D.C. At
that time, too, I was teaching at the Pace
Graduate School of Business, and I taught at
Fairleigh Dickinson University. I worked for Tom
part time and then started my own practice in New
York City, which I merged into Watson Rice,
starting their New York office.
Our clients include the NBA Players
Association, 1199SEIU National Benefit Fund,
the National Association of Black
Accountants and major nonprofit churches and
institutions like the Abyssinian and Canaan
Baptist churches and Union Theological Seminary.
Our public-sector clients include the New York
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York
City Board of Education and the city of New York.
Because these clients gave us an opportunity, we
make them feel special. I use my Southern
hospitality, I call it.
I’m on the education committee of
the New Jersey State Board of Accountancy, and I
served on the educational committee of the
National Association of State Boards of
Accountancy. I’ve also served as the head of the
Division of Firms of the National Association of
Black Accountants and am on the advisory board of
the Center for Accounting Education, Future
Leaders, at Howard University. That program, which
was started by Frank K. Ross, could be one of the
solutions to finding the best and the brightest
and helping them to get specialized training (see
“
Expanding the Ranks of African-American
CPAs,” page 48). Then, the hope is that
they’ll stay in the profession and become
African-American leaders. Role models like that
are one thing we don’t have enough of in our profession. |