History of the South Florida Practice

Prior to 1969 the Florida accountancy laws required that every partner and CPA in a Florida accounting firm had to be licensed in Florida.  The purpose of this law was to protect the Florida CPA’s from losing their clients to part-time residents (“snowbirds” and national firms).  At that time only two national CPA firms were “grandfathered” to operate in Florida (Arthur Young and Coopers & Lybrand – formerly Ring Mahoney & Arner). To meet the needs of Andersen’s clients, the Atlanta office opened “work stations” in Tampa in 1962 and in Miami in 1966. The Florida Board of Accounting in 1967 brought an action against Andersen that it was practicing accounting without a license.  To correct this issue, all Andersen partners and employees living in Florida resigned from Andersen and started a new Florida CPA firm known as Rittmann and Tollefson.  John Rittmann, formerly an Atlanta partner, was responsible for the Tampa office.  Don Tollefson, formerly a Detroit partner, was responsible for the Miami office.  The initial staffing of managers and seniors for the Miami office transferred from other Andersen offices (Ivan Faggen started with Andersen in Detroit and Ralph Johnson started in Atlanta).  The first staff person hired in the Miami office was Bill Pruitt, a graduate of the University of Miami. The first major publicly-held client of the Florida practice was The Wackenhut Corporation, which remained an Andersen client until it was sold in 2002.  more...