HATTIE: (Voiceover) So here we see out of adversity comes greatness.

GASPER: We started off with the idea that we were going to be a top CPA firm in the city. So we had to establish the image of being a top CPA firm. We got first-class space, first-class offices, first-class furniture, and went out to get the top people. I learned in that first few months the criticalness of looking at your cash flow projections.

CAROLYNE: And when we opened our offices in this building in January of '88, we had three employees. And they always got paid first, and then we tried to pay ourselves as we could.

HATTIE: But when you started, you had to go out and get some business...

CAROLYNE: Right.

HATTIE: So how did you shift in your mind and how did you organize your time to get the business and do the business at the same time?

CAROLYNE: We worked really hard. But every entrepreneur will tell you that there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears in starting your own company. There's a lot of things that we did for ourselves that now we're fortunate that we have other people in the organization that do it for us. But you're right. When you start your own business, you do everything.

HATTIE: Wasn't it a big cultural shock? Because, again, I've never worked in a big company. But was it a culture shock for you--were you saying to yourself, `Oh, my gosh. All my amenities are gone'?

CAROLYNE: No, it was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful, because I never realized, and I don't think my partners realized, how many forms there were to fill out at a big firm, how many meetings there were to go to, how many different people there were to be accountable for, as opposed to just going out and getting it done. So that kind of freedom that comes with the entrepreneurial office, which I think we've maintained as we've grown, that kind of incubator where you're free to think, to try new things, to recognize they didn't work and abandon them, and go on and try other new things. You can't do that in a big firm

ROLAND: No question about it, relating to the entrepreneurial spirit in that, you know, I want to be controlling my own destiny aspect. Secondly is that part of the work that I had been doing at the firm was mergers and acquisition work, which is a very, high-level, high-valued type of advisory work. So I had been involved in seeing firsthand individuals create wealth. So there's a big difference between working for a living vs. creating wealth.

HATTIE: Exactly.

ROLAND: I wanted to be in control of my own destiny. I'm not risk-adverse. And I did want to create wealth. So from that standpoint, I mean, those were some of the criteria. Having our own firm gave us that flexibility to do that.

GASPER: Fortunately for us, our focus was working with entrepreneurial companies, but becoming more business advisers as opposed to just auditors.

ROLAND: How are we going to position ourselves to be able to compete in the next millennium, in the next, you know, generation of business opportunities? And it's not going to be the traditional business. Why? Because the world's changing. And I saw an opportunity, once again, that MFR was the platform for the creation of ideas.