PROVIDENCE – Grafton H. “Cap” Willey IV, the managing shareholder of the Rhode Island offices of accounting and consulting firm Tofias PC, has been elected chair of the National Small Business Association. He will be the first Rhode Islander to hold that post.
A small business advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., the NSBA represents more than 150,000 member businesses and has up to 500 employees. The organization can trace its origins back to 1937, making it the oldest national small business organization.
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For Willey, business advocacy is a lifelong passion.
Active in the NSBA since the early 1980s, he is well known in the local business community for his work with groups including the Smaller Business Association of New England (SBANE); the Rhode Island Society of CPAs; the Greater Providence, Newport County and Northern Rhode Island Chambers of Commerce; and the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.
He recently led a group from RIPEC and the Rhode Island Society of CPAs in writing “The Rhode Island Personal Income Tax: A Call for Reform,” and he has long advocated for a flat state income tax, which this year became law in Rhode Island and is now being phased in.
On a national level, Willey currently serves on the Small Business Advisory Council to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, and previously has served on the U.S. Small Business Administration’s National Advisory Board and, in 1986 and 1995, led the Rhode Island delegations to the White House Conferences on Small Business.
Largely for this work, the SBA has once named him its New England Small Business Accounting Advocate of the Year and twice, its Rhode Island Small Business Accounting Advocate of the Year.
Willey has more than 30 years of experiences as a tax accountant and consultant to privately held businesses and their owners.
He was a co-founder of the local CPA firm Rooney, Plotkin & Willey, which in 2004 merged with regional accounting and consulting firm Tofias PC. Since the merger, Tofias’ Rhode Island offices have more than doubled in employees and office space.
Tofias PC has nearly 200 employees at four offices, in Providence, Cambridge, New Bedford and Newport, and is an independent member of BKR International, a worldwide association of firms specializing in accounting, taxation and business consulting. Additional information is available at www.tofias.com.
