Certified Public Accounting Firm
Lotito & Lazzara, P.C. is a certified public accounting firm located in Macomb Township, Michigan. We got history, a story like most that could be interesting to the right consumer of digit-based humor.
Jerry Innes & Mike Lotito started the firm in October 1992. We had worked together for six years at one of the area’s oldest CPA firms prior to going out on our own. We started our own firm for the most basic of all business reasons. The firm where we had worked was sold, and we didn’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling about our future with the new owners. So we were faced with the choice of learning how to dance to somebody else’s tune, or going into business for ourselves. We elected what appeared to be the easier option. We went into business.
The experience of starting a business from scratch gave us a perspective that many other accountants don’t have: a deeper understanding and appreciation for the sacrifices that other business operators face every day. As strange as it may sound, many larger accounting firms have no living founding members.
The accountants working for these firms have followed a career path that doesn’t afford them any entrepreneurial insight or perspective of their own. We think our experiences in growing our firm gives us a better insight into the needs of the clients we serve. Sometimes in the early years of a new business venture, there are doubts. Certainly, we had those doubts, too, especially when missing a family picnic or showing up late to one of our kids’ birthday parties because of business commitments.
An accounting quote that stands true is, “Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.”
It can make you question the reason for going into business. Are your efforts really producing a better life for your family, or is it some weird ego trip at the expense of your family? But, fortunately, during those years, we were too busy to notice something as insignificant as our own personal lives.
Over time, the firm has grown, both organically and through acquisition. Most recently, the highly-respected firm of Lazzara & Company joined forces with us, leading to the first name change in the history of the firm: Lotito & Lazzara, P.C. This combination will afford us the ability to leverage even more skill sets and makes us the largest independent, single-office CPA firm in Macomb County.
So, where are the Nerds now?
We have always focused on being on the leading edge of technology and with a staff of outstanding, hungry, young talent. We’re able to keep up with the increasingly complex tax and attestation issues facing our industry. Nothing is easy and it won’t get easier.
Being nerds gives us the advantage of embracing those complexities rather than running away from them. We continue to have fun doing what we do, and we’re both happy and proud that we have a team of quality people anxious to help our clients achieve their goals.
