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Marking a Milestone
Meyers Brothers Kalicka Celebrates 75 Years of Change — and What Hasn’t Changed
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
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It’s called the ‘Founders Room.’
This is a small conference room at Holyoke-based Meyers Brothers Kalicka featuring a table that can comfortably seat six or seven people, which makes it
a popular spot for smaller meetings and an attractive alternative to the cavern-
ous main conference room, which can host more than 40.
There are a few other gathering spots at this accounting firm, but this one is
unique because it pays homage to those who were there at the beginning — and in the decades that followed — for both Meyers Brothers and Joseph Kalicka and Co., two accounting firms that started the same year, 1948, and came together in a con- sequential merger in 2004 that created the firm known to most by the letters MBK.
The Founders Room takes on a little more importance this year as the firm cel- ebrates a milestone — its 75th anniversary. As it does so, it looks back at the impor- tant work of the three Meyers brothers who went into business together — Ben, Raymond, and Maurice (there’s a photo of them on the wall in the Founders Room) — and Joseph Kalicka, founder of the firm that took his name (there’s a photo of him
with former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis).
But the present and the future are the dominant topics of conversation on this
occasion, and there was much to discuss as we gathered thoughts from the five partners now setting a course for the firm — Howard Cheney, Rudy D’Agostino, Kristina Drzal Houghton, James Krupienski, and Kristi Reale — as well as David Kalicka, partner emeritus.
Collectively, they said the tenets put in place by the founders of both firms in 1948 — everything from a laser focus on customer service to a tradition of innova- tion and an emphasis on anticipating what the future might bring (and being ready for it) — are still serving MBK well as it copes with an onslaught of change coming from every direction.
This change involves everything from technology and how it is used to better serve both the company and its clients to creating a workplace that recognizes emerging needs and enables several generations of employees to work effectively — work that was in some ways impacted by, and accelerated by, the pandemic and the many ways in which it impacted the workplace.
For this issue and its focus on banking and financial services, BusinessWest talk- ed with MBK’s partners about the past 75 years, but mostly about what will come next — for both the firm and the industry.
Addition by ... Addition
It was in early 2003 that talks began about merging Meyers Brothers and Joseph Kalicka and Co., two firms that were in ‘friendly competition’ — a phrase heard early and often — for more than a half-century and had a lot of things in common.
Looking back on those days, Drzal Houghton, who joined Meyers Brothers in 1995, said that, while the firms were operating in many of the same spaces, or sec- tors of the business community, they had different niches. Also, Meyers Brothers had a benefits-consulting business as well as a wealth-management business. So a merger made sense on many levels.
“Both firms had a lot of clients in the medical field, but Meyers Brothers had a lot of clients in the nonprofit industry, so there was a lot of summer work,” she
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The five partners at Meyers Brothers Kalicka: from left, Jim Krupienski, Kristi Reale, Howard Cheney, Rudy D’Agostino, and Kristina Drzal Houghton.