Russ: Welcome back to The BusinessMakers Show, brought to you by Comcast Business, built for business, coming to you today from PKF Texas where I spend quite a bit of time – most of you probably know that – and I’m here today with the President Kenneth Guidry; Kenneth, welcome to The BusinessMakers Show.

Kenneth: Always good to be with you Russ.

Russ: You bet. So I just feel like something’s going on here pretty big and I’ve picked up bits and pieces and decided you needed to be on the show to tell us about it. What’s happening at PKF Texas?

Kenneth: Well I appreciate you asking and I’m very excited to talk about a new venture that we have launched along with our friends from Catalyst, our PKF affiliate firm in Calgary. And one of their long standing relationships – JVMI – we’ve purposely put this entity together, re-launched it as Joint Ventures Strategic Advisors – JVSA – and the purpose of the entity is really targeted to take advantage of the expansion of services to joint venture parties – participants – both around compliant services as well as advisory services to those parties.

Russ: Okay. And so this is PKF Texas and your kind of brother firm in Calgary got this third firm and you all got together and that’s what JVSA is?

Kenneth: We have been providing some joint venture audit services through PKF Texas in Houston reaching out to specialized skills of other consultants in the industry. This is an opportunity for us to really target the individuals that we’re working with, a very experienced team of individuals listening to what the marketplace is telling us about where the service opportunities are. There’s been an unprecedented amount of expenditures in oil and gas drilling programs over the last 4 to 5 years and we think this is a very exciting opportunity for us to serve the parties to those agreements.

Russ: Okay, and you spent quite a bit of time on these oil and gas companies but now with your Calgary partner you’re going to be able to be able to go in deeper and are you doing the sum up because you’re sensing there might be a lot of merger and acquisition business going on as well?

Kenneth: Well we’ve got a long-standing history of service to the energy business, what this does is really allow us to take advantage of two of the premier energy markets in North America. Lots of activity going on in Calgary, you’re likely aware of United adding direct flights to Calgary; I think it’s evidence of the interplay between these two cities and the two markets and the two economies.

Russ: Right. Okay, so will JVSA have a people and a presence in Houston as well?

Kenneth: Well we’ve got an existing team – part of our PKF Texas team that will dedicate some time to really expanding the Houston market opportunities. Scott Soles, one of our PKF Texas Directors will have a role in the JVSA entity. Brian Balmer, one of our Audit Directors who also provides a fair amount of consulting services to that market will also have a role and then we will, now that we are formally launching this, will expand that through a compliment of some seasoned industry veterans located here in Houston along with an existing team from Calgary.

Russ: Okay, it sounds real cool.

Kenneth: They should expect to see much more about JVSA and we encourage them to visit our website, JVSA.com.

Russ: Great, well I really appreciate you bringing us up to date.

Kenneth: Thank you Russ.

Russ: You bet, and that wraps up my discussion with Kenneth Guidry, the President here at PKF Texas. And this is The BusinessMakers Show, brought to you by Comcast Business, built for business.