CPA Pat Schultz Merging Practice with McLean, Rotherham & Co.

A longtime fixture in the local tax preparation business in Poway and Rancho Bernardo is merging with another area CPA firm.

Pat Schultz of Pat Schultz, CPA, located at 16935 West Bernardo Dr., is moving over to McLean, Rotherham & Co., a larger CPA firm, also based in Rancho Bernardo. The move will be effective Nov. 1.

She noted that the much larger McLean serves the region with offices in Mission Valley and Temecula, so she’ll be free from administrative chores.

“This will be great and will give me a lot more access to a lot more resources and allow me to do what I do best,” she said.

“She brings a great depth of experience to the tax side in serving the Rancho Bernardo community as well as Poway,” said Jim Rotherham, CEO and managing partner of McLean, Rotherham. “She also brings a reputation for quality and integrity, and she’s the type of executive that we obviously like to have at our firm.”

Rotherham said Schultz will serve as one of his firm’s senior tax managers, "continuing to serve her clients, and providing more depth to our clients."

He said landing Schultz was a coup for his firm. “I certainly wouldn’t want her joining the competition!” he added.

Schultz is a familiar face in local business circles because of her membership in the Poway Chamber of Commerce, as well as in the San Diego North Chamber of Commerce.

Schultz took time from her crazy schedule—what with the Oct. 17 deadline for clients to file their taxes after getting a six-month extension last April 17—to talk to Poway Patch about her decision.

She said she’ll continue to be active in the two organizations, but through the memberships held by McLean, Rotherham.

Schultz was born in California, but her family moved to the Midwest when she was 5 years old.

She returned to San Diego from Minnesota in 1994 when her husband, Bob Schultz, currently president of coronary stent maker Reva Medical in Kearny Mesa, took a position with a San Diego pharmaceutical firm at the time.

She was involved in customer support in the financial corporate software world, then went back to San Diego State University to get a master’s degree in taxation.

She passed her CPA exam in 1999, had her own office in Poway for a year, and then worked for Don McLean in Rancho Bernardo before going out on her own in 2003.

Jim Rotherham added McLean a number of years ago to his firm, so she'll rejoin an old friend in her new role.

With the move, Schultz said she’ll be able to spend more time working with clients, mostly individuals and small business owners, instead of spending so much time on back office chores. She has clients all along the I-15 corridor.

“I do a lot of small business work, but do not do accounting or bookkeeping or payroll,” she said. “I just do pure tax stuff, a lot of clients with rental properties and a lot with small businesses.”

It's been a busy time because of the economy.

“There’s a lot of turmoil in Southern California, so my clients have been looking for ways to reinvent themselves instead of just crippling along,” she said. “You sometimes think things are starting to turn around, but then you hear the analysis, so it’s hard to know what’s going on. Have we hit bottom yet? I don’t know.”

And Schultz’s plans for the future?

“As a sole practitioner, you’re just trying to do everything," she said. "This will be great because they have a lot more depth in the administrative end of things.

“I love to do the networking part,” she added, noting that she will continue to be a familiar face at chamber meetings up and down I-15.

“It will allow me to get out there, and do more business developmnt, drive sales, that sort of thing,” said Schultz.