Meet David McLaren of McLaren & Associates in Shrewsbury

Today we’d like to introduce you to David McLaren.

David, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I saw a need for clients to get proactive tax and business advice. Having worked for both local and international firms, I saw firsthand that clients were not getting this vital support. Instead tax work appeared to be an exercise in filling out forms with historical information. There was no value there. In 2005, with just a computer, a tray table and a milk-box table, I started my own firm out of my house. In addition to the strategic business and tax planning, forensics has been a big part of my history and passion. Tracking down lost or stolen funds is challenging and a completely different part of the industry. Along with that, we prepare business valuations for purchases and sales of businesses, as well as divorce, litigation and estate planning.

My history is different from most accountants. My sister was sick and diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of four, while I was two. This tore the family apart and my father left. My mother could not hold a job bringing my sister to treatment three full days a week, so we ended up on welfare. This happened in the old days when you had to go to the welfare office to sit and wait for six hours each month to receive and prove need for benefits. When my sister passed away at the age of eleven and I was nine, my mom had a great deal of challenges. By 17, I was living on the streets, sleeping in my car. I know what it is like to not have enough food, or even money for gas to heat the car in our winters. Bentley College took a chance on me and even though I had major student loan debt, I graduated 45th in the class with 10,000 students attending. This has given me a very different outlook on life. It also has allowed me to read people and negotiate better than most, as this meant survival on the streets.

Our firm is so different in what we do, trying to make a positive difference in as many lives as possible, that we have grown 30% this year, 25% the year before, and 35% the year before that. We have grown so much, that my real estate partner and I added a 3,000 square foot addition to the building that we own. We have been listed as the 11th largest firm in Central Mass and Metro-West.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The biggest struggles was getting the education and continuing the education to stay ahead of everyone else. I started so far behind that we learned to work harder to get ahead of those already set up better than I was from inception. A car accident in 1997 almost robbed me of my life and profession, causing me to start over, giving me an entirely new view point on life.

Today, as more and more clients find us and the firm continues to grow so quickly, our biggest challenge is finding good people to fit our culture of fun and family. We work hard at our firm, but we want this to be the best place anyone has ever worked in their life. I do expect a great deal from my team, but truly want them to succeed by raising the bar for them. In turn, it is making a positive difference in their lives and helping them grow, all while making a positive difference in our client’s lives.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the McLaren & Associates, CPAs PC story. Tell us more about the business.
We perform three services: Proactive strategic tax planning and preparation, forensic accounting and business valuations. We specialize in the forensics and have numerous licenses that few others have. We take that forensic background and apply it to the Tax Code to show small and medium businesses the areas of tax law that they are missing out on that goes back to 1945 and is still valid as well as the international tax treaties. This saves clients significantly more in taxes than the average tax preparer. On the forensic side, we handle partner theft, employee theft, divorces where assets and income are hidden, estates where someone is stealing money and even estates where the person passed away and no one knows where the assets are. We are known for fighting for our clients, whether that be against the IRS in a tax case, or when someone is having money stolen or hidden from them.

I am most proud of the team we have and the culture we have been able to develop. It is not for everyone, but our team is one big family and we all respect one another and our strengths. Keeping everything positive and celebrating our positive moments is what we do each month. We have an open door policy for everyone to help everyone else, regardless of level of skill.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
The bad luck of my sister’s death, family disintegration and even my car accident has forced me to work hard and always push forward. Our goal is to be the best on the East Coast and we will not stop until we are known as such.

The good luck has been to find the right people, like my current team, as well as opportunities, when they have developed. Decisions at the firm are made by the entire team and I take the advice of numerous respected people. I still use a business coach that has helped our firm, and me personally, make some pretty extreme changes, all for the positive. We have also had some major cases and clients take chances on us in the beginning, which was huge for us. We are forever grateful. Most of our clients become close personal friends.

Contact Info:

• Address: 385 South Street
  Shrewsbury, MA 01545
• Website: DMCLARENCPA.com
• Phone: 5088420459
• Email: http://www.dmclarencpa.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/McLarenandAssociatesCPAs/

   Image Credit:
McLaren & Associates, CPAs PC

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