Outstanding Members: Past, Present, and Future—Fourth Quarter 2024

Outstanding Members: Past, Present, and Future

Brien K. Jones
Chief Operations Officer and Executive Vice President of Business Development

Over the years, NACVA has recognized hundreds of members for their great service to the Association by awarding them Outstanding Member recognition. Their recognition is published in the Association News each quarter and we have been doing this since around 1994. For those that are curious, the idea for Outstanding Member recognition was Richard Claywell’s, a long-time member who resides in Texas and recipient of the Outstanding Member Award and NACVA’s Thomas R. Porter Lifetime Achievement Award.

Recently, a light bulb went on for the team at HQ thinking how interesting it would be to check in with our past Outstanding Members going back to when the Award started to see how their careers have unfolded. Because many deserving of the Award have moved over from their role in NACVA to make room for the next generation to rise and we would love to hear from them. Notwithstanding, many early recipients are still very involved and have become cornerstones in NACVA’s foundation of success. Right after the team at HQ came up with this idea, out of the blue, Parnell received this wonderful letter from Tom Hilton that Tom has agreed to let us share with our membership. With this first publication of “Outstanding Members: Past, Present, and Future,” we are hoping that many of our past recipients will step forward like Tom to bring us up to date on their lives and careers. (Please send your life and career highlights to Parnell1@NACVA.com.)

Hi Parnell:
I hope you and your family are doing well.  

Under the terms of our firm’s partnership agreement, I was to have retired seven years ago at the end of 2017. I wasn’t ready or interested in retiring at 65 so I proposed to my partners that I be allowed to stay on under an agreement that was totally risk free to them. We would agree to a fee split arrangement in which they had no financial obligation to me unless I generated new business. Needless to say, they were pleased with such an arrangement. We all benefitted from it.

For the past 20–25 years, I have been focused solely on fraud, forensic, and white collar crime investigations, along with very large commercial litigation matters. I have significant energy for my age but over the course of the past two years, it took me longer to recover from deposition and trial testimony. The cases were more intense, there were hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, and opposing counsel were from all over the U.S., hence, the best in class considering the stakes of the trial.

In 2022, when the matter of the City of St. Louis, et al. vs. the National Football League et al. settled (my largest case ever, which we can discuss by phone sometime), I realized that I wanted to leave the profession at the top of my game and not stay too long and make a mistake. I didn’t want to become Willie Mays!

So … I stopped taking new cases and worked my way through what was in the pipeline. When my last Monsanto defense case settled in June, I knew it was time for me to step back from practice at my firm. In addition, our firm had grown from 22 people when I started in 1983 to over 500 now. It was a great ride building a very successful practice, and now was the time for me to leave it to my younger partners.

So … I am retiring at the end of this year after 50 years in public accounting … and I am ready for a change. I wanted to reach out to you and thank you for your role in shaping and forming my career pathway. When I attended the two-day valuation conference put on by you and [your partner] at the Drake Hotel in Chicago, in 1991, I knew my career would be permanently altered. From that moment on, I finally had something on which to focus my entrepreneurial mindset and energy. When I left that hotel, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and what I wanted to become. Meeting you [both] was the best thing ever to happen to me professionally … and I am eternally grateful.

I simply wanted you to know the depth of my gratitude to you personally for changing my life’s trajectory and for your friendship over the years.  
What will I do? I honestly don’t know. I have intentionally not accepted other offers that have come my way. If I just let things evolve, something that interests me may very well find me … much like what occurred back in 1991. I’ll know then what is next.

In the meantime, I have a wife of 50 years, three children, and seven grandchildren who are all dear to me and need me. That alone is enough.
As my Irish grandfather would say, this is not goodbye … it’s until we meet again … and I hope that is sometime soon.

Warmest personal regards,
Tom

Thomas E. Hilton, CPA, ABV, CFF, CVA, CGMA
Partner, Forensic, Valuation and Litigation
Anders CPAs + Advisors

 
Thank you all for your tremendous support to NACVA. And happy holidays.

Brien K. Jones
Chief Operations Officer and Executive Vice President of Business Development