In 1992, Scott Eaton teamed up with his father, Bill Eaton, to provide tax preparation services to the San Clemente community. Their office was a small storefront on Avenida Del Mar, next to Dewey’s TV, and across from Tina & Vince’s Deli. The Coronet, on the corner of Ola Vista, and Russell’s stationery store were the biggest businesses around.

The tax business quickly evolved from the pencil and paper era, with stacks of forms, to a computer service bureau, with piles of data-entry sheets trucked back and forth to the processing center. Their clients increased from our original ninety-or-so, to several thousands as the system became more efficient.