At a gala event celebrating its 35th anniversary, the National Conference of CPA Practitioners honored a number of members with awards, including special recognition of three of its founders, and a Lifetime Achievement Award for past president Robert Goldfarb.
[IMGCAP(1)]The three CPAs who were honored with Founders Awards were Ed Kliegman, Irwin Pomerantz and Herb Schoenfeld. They, together with the late Eli Mason, were described as “the Mount Rushmore of NCCPAP” for their roles in founding the organization in the late 1970s.
Kliegman, a founder of Marcum & Kliegman (now Top 100 Firm Marcum), described how Mason convened a gathering of 50 accountants from across the country with the aim of creating an organization that would serve small CPA practice units and sole practitioners, and recalled how he and Schoenfeld (who was managing partner of Schoenfeld Mendelsohn & Goldfarb until its recent merger with Janover) contacted all 1,800 CPAs in the phone book about launching the local chapter. “Remember what a phone book is?” he asked.
Pomerantz, who owned his own firm in California before selling it in 2009, participated in the early stages of the formation of NCCPAP, and was cited by Schoenfeld for his ability to “bridge the gap” between small firms and large firms. Schoenfeld, in turn, was cited for bridging gaps of his own, with several speakers citing his reaching out to the American Institute of CPAs in the 1990s for creating a new relationship between the two membership organizations.
Goldfarb received his Lifetime Achievement Award for his many contributions to the organization and the profession, including serving as president of NCCPAP and playing a major role in developing its annual Long Island Tax Professionals Symposium. He has also been a member of AICPA Council, and currently serves on the New York State Board of Accountancy.
Among its other citations and awards, NCCPAP also recognized another past president, Alan Feldstein, with its highest honor, the Gold Award, for his service to the organization.
New officers
NCCPAP used the occasion to install its national executive officers and directors for 2013-2014, including Ed Caine as president; Sandra Johnson as executive vice president; Kenneth Hauptman, Donald Ingram and Sanford Zinman as vice presidents; Stuart Lang as treasurer; Stephen Mankowski as secretary; Lana Kupferschmidt as immediate past president; and Bruce Berkowitz, Neil Fishman, Frank Gallo, Sheldon Kronowitz, Lynne Marcus, David Rothfeld, Paula Sheppard, Ronald Tockman and Barry Zalk as directors.
[IMGCAP(2)]The executive officers and directors of the Nassau/Suffolk Chapter for 2013-2014 were also installed at the event, including Michael Rubinstein as president; Robert Brown as executive vice president; Abby Alhante as vice president; Steven Weisberg as treasurer; Sheldon Kronowitz as secretary; Gary Sanders as immediate past president; and Susan Gallo, Walter Koprowski, Andrea Parness, Mark Rosman, Stephen Sternlieb and Michael Walter as directors.
