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Deborah Adams, CPA, Partner
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 Deborah has over 25 years of experience in the financial and accounting profession. She is certified in Arizona and New York. Her educational background includes a bachelor’s degree in accounting, a master’s degree in management, and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study in accounting and tax. She also has two certificates of educational achievement—one in Personal Financial Planning and the other in Estate Planning. Deborah’s industry experience includes being Chief Financial Officer or Controller of small, medium and large corporations including the billion dollar U-Haul Corporation. Her public experience includes Coopers and Lybrand. She has been an instructor for the American Institute of CPAs in Strategic Planning. She is active in her community and serves on various boards. She is Arizona Chairman of the National Small Business Advisory Council. Recently she has been focusing on personal financial planning which we will soon be “officially” offering to our clients. |
Barbara Kvittem-Barr, CPA, Partner
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 Barb has over 20 years of experience in the financial and accounting profession and also holds the designation of Certified Financial Planner (CFP). Before moving into the accounting area, Barb received a bachelor’s degree in music and a master of Divinity degree and worked in both of these professions. She has additional graduate courses in accounting, tax and business. In industry, she has been Chief Financial Officer of a $10-million corporation. She also has extensive experience in public accounting and has published several articles on investments. She has lectured and taught seminars on numerous topics including investments, charitable giving as an estate planning tool, tax preparation and estate planning. She and Deb have worked together for over ten years. She is also active in her community and church.
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Tammy Manero (Salinger), CPA
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Tammy has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Accountancy. She originally worked with Barb in industry and then joined the public accounting world about 11 years ago. Tammy has experience in the corporate world as a controller for a $10-million company as well as extensive time associated with the Rodeo Drive store for Polo Ralph Lauren. At our firm she serves as manager for many of our clients and is especially well-liked because of her positive and upbeat attitude—as well as her extraordinary skills! She has two small children and has recently decreased some of her AKB hours to spend more time with them.
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John Purcelli, JD, CPA
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 John has over 25 years of experience in the income tax and accounting profession and was a partner with Arthur Andersen. He has a degree in business administration as well as a law degree. His main experience is in federal income taxes including compliance and consulting. He has worked with small family owned businesses as well as large publicly owned companies. He also has experience in merger and acquisition consulting, succession planning for family owned businesses, IRS and state audits and estate planning. He was in charge of a 40-person tax division where his responsibilities included marketing, recruiting, human resources, budgeting, forecasting and administration. He adds great strength and experience to our team.
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Sharon Strickland
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 Sharon is an Arizona native and current resident of Anthem. She is an experienced professional with over twenty five years experience in the financial and accounting profession including over sixteen years in public accounting. Sharon is currently completing the last four courses for her bachelor’s degree in accountancy at Western International University where she is a member of the Delta Mu Delta national honor society for business administration and the Golden Key International honor society for general studies. Her background includes experience working with a variety of industries including professional services, construction, manufacturing, real estate, and restaurants. She is knowledgeable about a variety of business tax matters including payroll, transaction privilege taxes, and business personal property taxes. |
Debra James
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 Debra (affectionately known as "DJ" so that we can keep her separate from "Deb" Adams) is beginning her 2nd tax season with AKB. She joined us in 2007 as a part-time team member for tax season and decided to stay on permanently. Her roots are in Michigan where she managed her family's retail business. She graduated from the University of Phoenix with a Bachelors of Science in Business Information Systems. She has also taken the Jackson-Hewitt and H & R Block tax courses. DJ is A+ and Network+ Computer Savvy Certified. You will come in contact with DJ in our Carefree Office as she specializes in working with our individual tax preparation. |
Laine Dakin-Salomonson
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Making up our international contingent is Laine who is British (Scots, not Scotch!) but moved to Arizona from Italy. Her bachelor’s degrees are in ‘ologies (Biology, Sociology & Psychology) from Herriott Watt University in Edinburgh, which she says have limited significance in her work except that micro organisms and offices are planned in the same way. She earned a Masters degree in Procedures & Productivity Analysis and she worked in this field mainly in International Banking/Finance. For AKB, you can find her in our Arrowhead office where she assists Barb and does project work. You can recognize her by the accent.
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Mary DeGroff
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 Mary joined our team in January 2007. She is our Office Manager and more importantly our "Director of Fun." She is responsible for keeping things organized and humming away in the most efficient way possible at our main office in Carefree. Mary originally hails from the Midwest, where she grew up in her family's business and attended Lansing Business University. She has worked in Human Resources, Guest Coordination and contracting, as well as many other fields and been a resident of the Carefree/Cave Creek area for several years. We're excited about the fact that she is also a "Sous Chef" - which makes our monthly team meetings a little more"tasty." |
Larry Nolan, CPA
|  Larry has over 25 years experience in the accounting and financial profession. He has been a Certified Public Accountant for over 20 years and is licensed in Arizona. His educational background includes a degree in Engineering from the US Naval Academy, a Masters Degree in Business Administration (MBA) as well as numerous additional graduate courses in accounting. He began his career as a Naval Officer followed by extensive experience as a financial executive with several Fortune 500 companies. Larry has also worked closely with small businesses and individuals. In addition he taught accounting at the University of Richmond. Larry will be putting his impressive background to work with AKB working extensively with our tax preparation this year.
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Dale Kvittem-Barr
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 It is Dale’s 5th official year on our team although he has assisted us in an unofficial position for many years (as Barb’s husband). Dale’s expertise includes the areas of business strategies & planning, visioning, administration, human resources, systems & procedural analysis and just plain keeping things on target. He holds bachelors degrees in business and psychology and has a master’s degree in business administration (health services administration). Dale also manages our internal computer network & information systems and keeps us on the cutting-edge of technology. We have a state-of-the-art computer system because of his expert leadership. He is available for business consulting and special projects for our clients. |
Direct phone numbers for each team member are as follows:
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