Ollie Lambert Recounts History with Us

In the office today, we had the pleasure of seeing long time client, Mr. Oliver Lambert, who has been getting his taxes done with us since the early 70’s.  Although we have many clients we have been seeing a long time, the way in which Mr. Lambert; or Ollie, as he goes by, started having his taxes done by us is an interesting one, as we learned today.

Mr. Al LaGrone, who started the firm, had made his own software program at the time, out of his garage I might add, which would check for red flags for IRS audits, and was needing a computer to run his program.  As Ollie puts it, “this was at a time before hardly anyone, even large businesses had computers,” but he was working for Boeing in Huntsville and they had two, an IBM 1401 and an IBM 360 MOD 30, then later, got an IBM 360 MOD 65.

“Which these were not the type of computers we generally think of when thinking about a computer these days,” Mr. Lambert stated.  “If you wanted to print anything for instance,” he went on to say, “you would start on the IBM 1401, then the IBM 360 MOD 30 which was used for reading punch cards to create out put tapes for the IBM 360 MOD 65 or MOD 50, where you would then take the out put tapes and manually carry them to the MOD 30. “

Mr. LaGrone and Mr. Lambert crossed paths because Mr. LaGrone was buying time from Boeing to use the computers to run his program.  One day Mr. LaGrone  convinced Mr. Lambert to let him do his taxes by promising him that if he was ever audited, Mr. LaGrone would personally go with him and make sure everything went well.  After Mr. Lambert gave Mr. LaGrone a try, the rest is history.

Ollie has been getting his taxes done here ever since, now even driving from his home in Franklin, TN, where he is retired from the State of Tennessee.

Working for a Company that has been around as long as, and has as great of a reputation as Cook & Co. does, these kind of stories are always a joy to hear as well as a great learning tool for me in the beginning of my time here.  I hope you guys enjoy learning a little about our history as well.