Founding Partner, Friedlander Cherwon Capper, LLP, his client base has grown from four to over 500.
Member of Adelphi University’s Profiles in Success program.
Founding Partner, Friedlander Cherwon Capper, LLP
Favorite professor: Professor George Hamilton, who taught tax law.Value of Adelphi degree: “I take great pride in knowing that I have my degree, and that Adelphi provided me the opportunity to achieve my professional goals.”Advice to Adelphi students: “Know your goals. Write them down. Review the list every year to see where you are.”
Reasons to be an early riser: “Salmon fishing under the Golden Gate Bridge and tracking the stock market.”
Proving that Good Client Relationships Are a Great Investment
Steven Cherwon’s ’69 career in accounting hasn’t been all about balance sheets and numbers. “A lot of my clients have been my mentors,” he says. “They teach me all the time. I am very fortunate to get paid to work with extraordinary people.”
He has applied his expertise in wealth planning to a diverse client base for nearly 30 years. In 1978, a few years after relocating to northern California, Mr. Cherwon and four partners established their own accounting firm.
It was a venture that his former boss predicted would fail within six months. Today, he is one of two original partners remaining, and his client base has grown from four to over 500.
Friedlander Cherwon Capper, LLP, provides tax planning and compliance to corporations, individuals, and partnerships throughout California and the United States. He notes that even after almost three decades, “we have never had a partnership agreement. We never needed one. The best businesses are able to run on a handshake agreement.”
Mr. Cherwon learned much of his business philosophy while working in his father’s drugstore in Bedford-Stuyvesant. “It really taught me humility, and how to work with people from all walks of life.” Mr. Cherwon continues his father’s tradition of service, “I will never turn someone away once they are a client. As an accountant you see people when times are good, and when they are really struggling.”
Always fascinated by investing, he could already imagine a career on Wall Street as a teenager, but ultimately chose to pursue accounting. “Investing was, and is, my primary hobby, and I didn’t want to make a career out of a hobby.”
He concedes that “investing taught me a lot about my job,” but his continued enthusiasm for the market reveals that the years haven’t diminished his excitement at discovering a new investment opportunity.
In his spare time, Mr. Cherwon can be found fishing the waters off Marin County, California. He bought himself a boat as a 40th birthday present and has been on the lookout for that prize salmon ever since.
For further information, please contact:
Todd Wilson
Strategic Communications Director
p – 516.237.8634
e – twilson@adelphi.edu