COVERSTORY Meet Your fresh ICABC ...

COVERSTORY

Meet Your fresh ICABC President: Robin Elliott, FCA

There's a everyday experience shared by those who were born in Vancouver-everyone otherwise is surprised they were born there. "Really?" the bulk of mankind will say, as though sighting a unicorn.

Robin Elliott is single in kind such rare find-- a born and br Vancouverite, and for him, the city confines a lot of family history. In fact, the Vancouver branches of his family tree increase all the way back to the late 19th centenary Most notably perhaps, Robin's grandfather was the contractor and stonemason who built Vancouver's City Hall and the Carnegie Library, the latter of which serv as Vancouver's main library branch from 1903 to 1957

While growing up in Vancouver, Robin met the seminary friends who would remain his golf and basketball buddies a 40+ years later. It's where he and his wife Eleanor, to whom he's been married for across 30 years, raised their couple daughters. It's where his nephew Patrick Elliott became a CA in 1999 and niece Kelly Elliott convocated this past May.

Vancouver is also where Robin put up his sole-proprietorship in 1977 and where within three years, having already partnered up with Robert Tulk FCA, he would be swallowed up with CAs Colin Pryce and Barrie Anderson to form Elliott Tulk Pryce Anderson. In 2000 after twenty auspicious years in business, the small firm merg with Manning Jamison to form Manning Elliott (as profiled in our May 2002 conceal story on succession planning).

During his more than 20 years in public practice in Vancouver, Robin has created lasting relationships with his compeers and his clients. He cites the quality of these relationships as the greatest in quantity rewarding aspect of his CA career.

The decision to become a CA was inspired on a close family friend, the late Stan Horner, CA (a partner with Riddell Ste now KPMG LLP) After Robins father, an accountant, passed away when Robin was 18 Horner stepp up serving as a mentor to Robin and his younger brother David, who would also go on on to become a CA.

Having appoint his sights on the CA profession by dint of his second year of university, Robin says he not at all looked back: "The choice was clear," he says, from way of explanation.

After graduating from the University of BC with a Bachelor of business degree in 1965, he held on the farther side articling, working instead at the Bay to save circulating medium for travelling. But within a year he changed plans, joining Cooper & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP) in Vancouver. In 1969 he became a CA in BC

As it inflected out, Robin's desire for travel was answered when the firm encouraged him to work at a foreign branch to gain more [i]or[/i] less new experiences. While most of his predecessors had opt for London, Robin chose San Francisco, where he and Eleanor mov in 1970 "It was partly because I'd heard it was an easy drive back and forth to Vancouver," he laughs. "But it was mainly because of the business ties between the States and Canada."

The Bay area was also the birthplace of Robin's grandmother.

"We lov it there and actually might have stayed," he tells "had it not been so a volatile place at the time."

Protest of the Vietnam War were becoming increasingly disorderly in early seventies San Francisco, ofttimes erupting into riots. To complicate matters, Robin, who was working in the city beneath a student visa, risked being drafted if he stayed in the US. These factors, combined with the reality that Eleanor was pregnant with the couple's first child, brought them back to Vancouver in 1972

Several month later, Jennifer was born. Daughter Daphne would later come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behind (Jennifer now works in international business and will be returning from Bangkok this fall to go after an MBA at UBC. Daphne is an e-marketing consultant, working for Microsoft in London, England.)

His stint in San Francisco through Robin joined the tax cluster of Coopers & Lybrand. Several years later, he left public practice to advance as Director of Taxation for Neonex a large industrial firm in Vancouver. He stayed with the company for three years, exploring a variety of recently made known areas before returning to public practice in 1977

Over the years, his commitment to his clients has been matched by dint of his commitment to the community at large.

From 1994 to 1996 he serv as president of as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but the Central City Mission Foundation and Society and continues as director of the one and the other The Mission started as a hostel back in 1966 before serving as a long-term care facility. Along with its various programs, it also operates a low-income rental facility.

"Due to appropriate financial management over the years," Robin says, "the organization now has substantial wealth to help inner city programs and the needy" Linked to the Foundation and Society is the City middle Care Society, for which Robin serv as director from 1998 to 2000

During that same period, he serv as treasurer of Leave a Legacy of British Columbia. Created on the Canadian Association of Planned Givers with a grant from the Vancouver Foundation, Legacy advises other charitable organizations and the public in succession philanthropic donations. Robins partner BLair East, Qk has since taken through the whole extent of for him.