Stuart McCallum
A.E. Petsche, CFO

A.E. Petsche moved to PSK four years ago. We used a large Dallas firm and weren’t happy with the service quality—we received things late and it was hard to get a response to questions.

We were looking for a local CPA firm—not one in Fort Worth or Dallas—and we wanted everything under one roof to make it simple for us. Our chosen firm would have to be large enough to handle our tax needs and staff the audit. Choosing PSK was based on a combination of my knowledge of the firm from my past role as CFO of Classic Attractions—Richard Koch was on their board—and from one of A.E. Petsche’s owners who already went to PSK for his personal tax return.

PSK is the best CPA firm there is in Arlington. They have an impressive client list that includes auditing the Arlington Independent School District. Plus they are conveniently located—only about 10 minutes from my office—so I visit them a few times a month during tax season.

A nice benefit of being a client is that PSK offers continuing education classes for in-house CPAs, which helps my accounting manager and I meet our licensing requirements

Joe Foster and Lacey Riley assist us on the tax side, and Kevin Brock and Steve Kilpatrick on the audit side.

PSK is very responsive and very knowledgeable of current tax laws. We rely on PSK for our federal and state tax returns because we are in 15 different states and have to file composite income tax returns. They also help our owners with their personal taxes—one in particular has a very complicated return due to several business ventures.

We have PSK do an audit which isn’t required since we are not publicly traded (only a review is required for our line of credit) but we’d rather invest in an audit for its more thorough examination. The owners feel better and it’s the right thing for our company. PSK also assists with depreciation and being more proactive with reporting.

It’s nice to have continuity from year to year, especially on the audit side. To take someone brand new and explain our company’s accounting systems, internal controls, and how we do business takes some time. We don’t want to break a new person in—we hope Kevin stays a long time!

Joe Foster is very, very good and he’s very knowledgeable in tax. He has a smart mind and is a good listener—he asks the right questions. We quickly get on the same page for anything new or different. We enjoy our relationship with Joe.

Lacey is a really good manager. She gets all of the details taken care of and is good at fighting through all of the paperwork.

PSK is a great place and has nice offices. They don’t overwork their staff and they have the right number of people for the amount of work they do. There also doesn’t seem to be a lot of turnover which I think is important.”

Stuart has been the CFO of A.E. Petsche for four years. A.E. Petsche is an international company with offices in London, Paris, Belguim, Mexico, and Montreal. They supply interconnect products (wire, cable, connectors, and harness management solutions) and related services. Their sales are approximately $200M. They have 250 employees worldwide with approximately 150 in Texas, where manufacturing is done. The other offices house sales and distribution.

Prior to joining A.E. Petsche, Stuart was a tax manager for Johnson & Johnson.