Accounting Hall of Fame


The Accounting Hall of Fame is an award "recognizing accountants who are making or have made a significant contribution to the advancement of accounting" since the beginning of the 20th century. Inductees are from both accounting academia and practice. Since its inception in 1950 at The Ohio State University, it has honored 93 influential accounting professors, professional practitioners, and government and business accountants from the United States and other countries.
One, two, or three awards are issued most years. There were four in 2000, 2018, and 2019. There were no inductees for 2016 or 2017, nor were there awards in 1966-67 or in 1969-73.
Selection to The Accounting Hall of Fame is intended to honor and recognize distinguished service and contributions to the progress of accounting in any of its various fields. Evidence of such service includes contributions to accounting research and literature, significant service to professional accounting organizations, wide recognition as an authority in some field of accounting, advancement of accounting education, and public service. A member must have reached a position of eminence from which the nature of his or her contributions may be established.
Now hosted by the American Accounting Association, The Accounting Hall of Fame was established in 1950 at The Ohio State University. In 2017, OSU entered into an agreement with the American Accounting Association to transfer the authority to host of the Hall of Fame to the AAA. Since 2017 The Accounting Hall of Fame Transition Team, appointed by the AAA Board of Directors and chaired by Past-President Bruce Behn, who convenes the electors and administers the process has made the selections.
Induction of the 2019 members was held at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association, in August, in San Francisco, CA.

Overview

The Hall of Fame describes: "While selection to the Hall of Fame is intended to honor the people so chosen, it is also intended to be a recognition of distinguished service contributions to the progress of accounting in any of its various fields. Evidence of such service includes contributions to accounting research and literature, significant service to professional accounting organizations, wide recognition as an authority in some field of accounting, advancement of accounting education, and public service. A member must have reached a position of eminence from which the nature of his or her contributions may be judged."
"Election to The Accounting Hall of Fame is perhaps the only longstanding national award for accountants -- and probably the only international one as well -- in which both academic and practicing accountants vie for the same award."
Induction into The Accounting Hall of Fame is one of the higher honors available within accounting academia. The only comparable awards in the United States may be two awards of the American Accounting Association: the Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award Award which has been received by many of the Hall of Fame inductees, and the rare Seminal Contributions to Accounting Literature Award, which has only been awarded seven times. The sublist of inductees who are accounting academics, thus, includes many of the most notable accounting academics.
An accounting of 36 inductees during the first 26 years of the award identifies that 20 were chiefly active in public accounting, 10 were university professors, 4 were government officials, and that 2 were most prominent in industry.
The recipients of the award are otherwise highly decorated: 21 of the first 36 are recipients of the AICPA's highest honor, its Gold Medal award; 15 received the Alpha Kappa Psi Accounting Foundation Award; at least 15 received honorary degrees, one was knighted in England; and one received "the highest honor the U.S. federal government can bestow upon a career civilian employee, the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service."
In a keynote speech at the 50th anniversary of the Hall of Fame, hosted by The Ohio State University and The Academy of Accounting Historians, Lynn Turner, then chief accountant of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, noted the influence of George O. May and numerous other recipients upon the evolution of accounting and auditing practice and principles "that makes our system of accounting the greatest in the world".
The award has always been intended to honor world-level contributions. The majority of recipients have been Americans, perhaps reflecting the historic leadership of America in the development of accounting regulations and in formal accounting research as much as reflecting the U.S.-based hosting of the award. Accounting standards co-evolved with the New York Stock Exchange and other public financial markets which have a scale and history in the U.S. not matched by public markets in most other countries. Englishman Sir Arthur Lowes Dickinson was one of the earliest inductees, honored in 1951 for establishing principles of consolidated accounting for conglomerate companies such as U.S. Steel while he was senior partner of Price-Waterhouse in the U.S. during 1901 to 1913. The first Canadian inducted was Howard Irwin Ross in 1977. The first woman inducted was Katherine Schipper in 2007.

Inductees

As of 2019, there are 101 inducted members of The Accounting Hall of Fame:
AHoF
number		YearMember
11950May, George Oliver
21950Montgomery, Robert Hiester
31950Paton, William Andrew
41951Dickinson, Arthur Lowes
51951Hatfield, Henry Rand
61952Sells, Elijah Watt
71952Stempf, Victor Hermann
81953Andersen, Arthur Edward
91953Andrews, Thomas Coleman
101953Sprague, Charles Ezra
111953Sterrett, Joseph Edmund
121954Blough, Carman George
131954Broad, Samuel John
141954Sanders, Thomas Henry
151954Scovill, Hiram Thompson
161955Brundage, Percival Flack
171956Littleton, Ananias Charles
181957Kester, Roy Bernard
191957Miller, Hermann Clinton
201958Finney, Harry Anson
211958Foye, Arthur Bevins
221958Perry, Donald Putnam
231959Eaton, Marquis George
241960Stans, Maurice Hubert
251961Kohler, Eric Louis
261963Barr, Andrew
271963Morey, Lloyd
281964Grady, Paul Franklin
291964Mason, Perry Empey
301965Peirce, James Loring
311968Bailey, George Davis
321968Carey, John Lansing
331968Werntz, William Welling
341974Trueblood, Robert Martin
351975Spacek, Leonard Paul
361976Queenan, John William
371977Ross, Howard Irwin
381978Mautz, Robert Kuhn
391979Moonitz, Maurice
401980Armstrong, Marshall Smith
411981Staats, Elmer Boyd
421982Miller, Herbert Elmer
431983Davidson, Sidney
441984Benson, Henry Alexander
451985Gellein, Oscar Strand
461986Anthony, Robert Newton
471987Defliese, Philip Leroy
481988Bedford, Norton Moore
491989Ijiri, Yuji
501990Horngren, Charles Thomas
511991Chambers, Raymond John
521992Solomons, David
531993Baker, Richard Thomas
541994Sprouse, Robert Thomas
551995Cooper, William Wager
561996Beaver, William Henry
571996Bowsher, Charles Arthur
581996Kirk, Donald James
591997Burns, Thomas Junior
601997Burton, John Campbell
611998Wyatt, Arthur Ramer
621999Cook, Jay Michael
631999Groves, Ray John
642000Demski, Joel Stanley
652000Haskins, Charles Waldo
662000O'Malley, Shaun Fenton
672000Skinner, Ross Macgregor
682001Dopuch, Nicholas
692001Edwards, James Don
702002Zeff, Stephen Addam
712003Edwards, Edgar O.
722003Bell, Philip W.
732003Leisenring, James J.
742004Beresford, Dennis Robert
752004Feltham, Gerald Albert
762004Vatter, William Joseph
772005Baxter, William Threipland
782005Jenkins, Edmund Lowell
792006Kaplan, Robert Samuel
802006Sterling, Robert Raymond
812007Schipper, Katherine
822008Hopwood, Anthony
832008Schuetze, Walter P.
842009Dyckman, Thomas
852009Ball, Raymond John
862010Walker, David Michael
872011Previts, Gary John
882011Storey, Reed Karl
892012Herz, Robert
902013Tweedie, David Philip
912014Kinney, William Rudolph
922014Briloff, Abraham Jacob
932015Ohlson, James A.
942018Anderson, George David
952018Barth, Mary Elizabeth
962018Kirtley, Olivia Faulkner
972018Stringer, Kenneth Wilson
982019Campfield, William Louis
992019Nicholson, J. Lee
1002018Palmrose, Zoe-Vonna
1012019Penman, Stephan Harland