Sam F. Fiser
Managing Partner, S.F. Fiser & Co.
Springdale
Although Sam F. Fiser says that he “tripped and fell out of college” and into public accounting, it turned out to be a lucky break not only for him but also for his clients, though he remains modest about his success.
After 41 years in the business, he’s now being recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Accounting.
“When I graduated from college, I really didn’t even understand what a CPA was,” Fiser said. But in talking to one of his accounting professors at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Fiser learned that there was a job opening at Russell Brown & Co. of Little Rock.
“I went and interviewed for it, and here all these years later I’m still in public accounting,” Fiser, 63, said. “I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”
His co-workers at Russell Brown, which he joined in 1971, “had a profound impact on my career,” Fiser said. He described them as wonderful mentors, particularly Harry Erwin, who was at that time managing partner.
Fiser admired Erwin’s management acumen and expressed gratitude toward him. “He put me in positions where I could succeed or fail,” Fiser said. “This gave me the opportunity to advance in my career and develop more client responsibility. His actions ultimately gave me the self-confidence to start my own firm.”
Fiser, born and raised in Little Rock, became a partner at Russell Brown and ended up in Springdale when he was dispatched to open the firm’s first branch office.
In January 1982, Russell Brown merged with accounting giant Arthur Young & Co., at which Fiser also became a partner.
The constant traveling, however, became a burden, Fiser said, particularly because he had two small children at the time. So he left Arthur Young to work for a client. That job proved short lived.
“After spending six months with that client, I just came to the realization that my true love was public accounting, and that’s when I left that company and started my own firm. That was in October of 1985.”
S.F. Fiser & Co. has grown to 20 employees with a branch office in Batesville.
One of his challenges, Fiser said, has been convincing potential clients that despite his firm’s relatively small size, it’s fully up to the task of meeting their needs. Doing that “takes a dedication to just really hard work in building a reputation in the business community,” he said. “And it takes a lot of sacrifice to be able to do that. It takes a lot more work than a lot of people are willing to invest.”
Another challenge is just the continual flux to be found in the accounting profession, Fiser said, giving as an example the constant change in the tax code. “It just never stays static,” he said. “It’s always changing.”
In addition, financial scandals such as those involving Enron Corp. and WorldCom have resulted in “regulatory and governmental pressure on the accounting industry, and that creates a lot of changes as a reaction to those pressures — sometimes with a whole new set of standards.”
Despite the challenges, Fiser relishes having his own firm. Asked what he finds satisfying about being chief of S.F. Fiser & Co., he said: “I have an uncle who responded to that question this way: He said, ‘When you own your own business, you only have to work half a day every day.’ And he said, ‘It’s completely up to you what 12 hours a day during those seven days a week you want to work.’”
But Fiser’s hard work has been rewarded. “Just working with a lot of diverse businesses and seeing how they work and what makes people successful is really rewarding,” he said. “And watching people grow up within the business here in the firm is a lot of fun.” He enjoys serving as a mentor, Fiser said.
In addition, Fiser has received recognition as an alumnus of the year in public accounting from UA’s Sam M. Walton College of Business.
And hard work hasn’t prevented him from participating in his community. Fiser has served as chairman of the Springdale Chamber of Commerce, as a member of the board of the Art Center of the Ozarks, as chairman of the Arkansas State Savings & Loan Board and as a member of the board of Lyon College in Batesville, among other activities.
He emphasized that assistance from his wife, Debbie, had been critical. She helped him launch S.F. Fiser & Co. and has been the firm’s administrative manager from the beginning.
“She’s worked as hard as I have,” Fiser said. “She’s managed to be a major part of this firm and raise two children at the same time.”
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