n FINANCE
B
efore BFBA became the re-
gion’s largest locally owned ac-
counting firm, there were four
guys at a table in a dark corner
of the Black Angus Steakhouse
in Citrus Heights.
It was the summer of 1982, and the
four soon-to-be founders of BFBA were
all advancing at big-name accounting
firms: Myles Brown and David Boyce
worked for KPMG (then Peat, Mar-
wick, Mitchell & Co.), and Craig Boyce
(David’s brother) and Rob Fink were at
Gallina LLP (now part of CLA).
Brown was grappling with the
unappealing prospect of moving his
family from Sacramento to a bigger
city if he were to make partner. Mean-
while, the Boyce brothers were talking
about running their own Sacramento
firm. Fink also wanted the chance to
run a new firm with people he trusted
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and enjoyed, say the others who were
at the table that night.
The quartet met that first night to
get acquainted. As they talked, enthu-
siasm spiked. By the end of the eve-
ning, they were picking a name for their
new firm and deciding who might be
managing partner (they ultimately de-
cided on Brown). On July 1, 1983, they
launched Brown, Fink, Boyce & Co.
For the next 25 years, the part-
ners steadily grew the firm’s tax, audit
and business advisory services. Then
in 2008, they got a closeup of a prob-
lem plaguing companies. That year, a
client in Reno, well into his 70s, was
struggling with how to sustain his
company after he retired. BFBA helped
him identify two key people who were
poised to leave after his retirement
but were actually best positioned to
take over. Had they left, the firm would
have died, and BFBA would have lost
a client, David Boyce says. Instead,
BFBA helped structure a deal that let
the two employees buy the firm. Today
that company is a “hugely loyal” cli-
ent,” he says.
Transitions wipe out a lot of busi-
nesses. For family firms, only about
one in three survive through the
second generation, and one in eight
through at least the third. BFBA recog-
nized a lack of succession planning as
a ticking bomb and realized they had
the expertise to help defuse it.
Today, BFBA helps companies plan
for the complex financial and inter-
personal issues involved in leadership
and ownership transitions. And in the
last decade, the firm has turned its
succession planning expertise inward:
With BFBA’s three remaining founders
getting set to retire (Fink retired in