Kenny Dungan says he enjoys coming to work every day and has for the past 30 years because of his clients, his staff and the support from his family.
“This firm would not be here without those, without clients to develop relationships with, your family to support you and a very capable and delightful staff to get you there,” said Dungan, the Watkins, Ward and Stafford CPA professional manager of the Kosciusko office. “It’s not me; it’s us.”
A reception was held in his honor Tuesday for his 30 years of accounting service to the Kosciusko community.
Dungan started the Kosciusko firm in 1994 as Dungan CPA and Company. He merged his firm with Watkins, Ward and Stafford in 2015.
“Thirty years is a great experience. I’ve seen and learned a lot,” he said.
Dungan is not retiring, but he will soon ease back some from his current workload but will remain present in the firm and will continue to stay connected to offer help, support and direction.
As he begins the process of stepping back some, Watkins, Ward and Stafford will soon bring in another professional to pick up the workload.
“The firm wants to stay here and keep things going,” said Dungan. “I’m stepping back from day to day, but I’m still very much connected and plugged in.
“We’ve got it to this level, and what I want is for the next professional to take it to the next level. I look forward to seeing it continue to grow.”
Dungan’s name will remain on the plaque at the front door of the office, located on South Natchez Street.
The longtime accountant’s interest in the profession started at an early age. Dungan, a Lucedale native, said his mother was a meticulous and neat bookkeeper.
“She did bookkeeping in the old 13 columnar pads. Those numbers were neatly entered as many times with a pen, and she kept a detailed ledger by hand. So, I suppose I inherited that from her.”
His family had a hardware store, and when he was in high school and during his early years in college, he would pitch in at the store.
“I sort of plugged into that bookkeeping function,” he said. “I understood the bookkeeping, the accounting, part of the business, related to that and understood financial statements — how they reported the results of your business operation. So I gained that early and liked the accounting aspect of business.”
So when he attended the University of Southern Mississippi, he decided to study business administration.
When he was about to graduate from college, he was recruited by a local manufacturing company in Kosciusko to work in the accounting department. His girlfriend at the time, who eventually became his wife, Amanda, lived in Jackson, and he wanted to be closer to her. So Dungan took the job. “That’s what got me here,” he said.
After the couple married and started a family, Dungan realized that he needed to get his CPA certificate. He continued his education and studied to be eligible to take the CPA exam.
After receiving his CPA designation, he made a connection with a Lexington accounting firm owner, David Stotts.
“I got my start there, sometimes doing tax returns by hand,” he said. “That was an experience.”
That connection enabled Dungan and Stotts to open a firm in Kosciusko, which was across the street from the Watkins, Ward and Stafford office, where McCool Thorpe Real Estate is located today.
He worked in Kosciusko and also went to Lexington and worked. During this time, he said it was hard work and long hours, but he gained so much valuable experience.
“But as it progressed and grew, the firm in Lexington needed me more there, and I wanted to be more here,” he said.
Dungan and Stotts mutually agreed to part ways, and Dungan took over the office in Kosciusko. It then became Dungan CPA Company.
“The first tax year, I did 25 tax returns here, but now that’s grown to a fairly large number, but it started from nothing,” he said.
Through the years, he has been active in the community.
Willa Sanders, who used to be the director of the Kosciusko Attala Partnership, helped Dungan get involved.
“She became a good mentor,” he said. “A lot of accounting is relationships. This is a great place to live and work and raise a family.”
Dungan said his wife has been very supportive in his career. His children, Erin and Jonathon, also worked at the firm during high school and college. Erin is a nurse, and Jonathan is also an accountant with a CPA designation.
“It was valuable skillsets for them to learn, but it was good to have them a part,” said Dungan.
The firm started as a general accounting office offering tax services. Then, it added municipal, or governmental, accounting, and later started providing some audit services.
“We’ve added extra layers of services to provide to the local client base. That progressed for several years,” he said.
As Dungan CPA continued to grow, a connection was made with Watkins, Ward and Stafford, and the firms merged in 2015.
“That connection turned out to be phenomenal. They are a regional firm with 17 offices and over 60 professionals, and that’s what we are able to bring to this community,” he said, “a whole network of expertise.”
Dungan started the firm from nothing, laid a solid foundation by establishing relationships with his clients, and grew the firm. And he is excited to see it continue to grow.
Thinking back on the past 30 years, Dungan said, “It is a sense of accomplishment. Developing those relationships becomes meaningful over time. So as you look out, I don’t see the services we provided, I see the relationships developed, and it is enjoyable. It’s rewarding to see businesses that we started with several years ago that are now very large businesses in this town. It’s that business owner who did it, but hopefully we were some part of helping them get to that point of becoming successful.”
