Ivan M. West

West, Ivan M., 95, retired CPA, banker, investment advisor, corporate financial advisor and serial entrepreneur, passed away on Tuesday, October 25, 2005. He was born March 1, 1910 in Garden City, Missouri to Garland and Josephine West. After graduating from high school in Garden City, Missouri at the age of 15, he worked in a local bank until the banks premises were destroyed in a fire. At age 18 he entered the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, where he earned a bachelors degree in 1932 in Business with majors in accounting and finance. His career in public accounting started with the Kansas City CPA firm of Lunsford Barnes, which sent him to its Wichita office. In 1938 he and Bill Moberly left Lunsford Barnes to start the firm that became Moberly, West, Jennings and Shaul. It grew into one of the largest CPA firms in the region. That firm eventually became Main Hurdman and later became the genesis of Allen, Gibbs and Houlik. He served his profession well as President of the Kansas Society of Certified Public Accountants and member of the Auditing Standards Committee of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. In 1965 he founded the Twin Lakes State Bank where he served as chairman. In 1968 he retired from the CPA business. In 1976 he sold the Bank. Soon thereafter, he was recruited by Beech Aircraft Chairwoman, Olive Ann Beech and President Frank Hedrick to manage the corporations pension fund investments. That soon led to an assignment to engineer the sale of Beech resulting in the sale to Raytheon. Not content to have had three very successful careers, Ivan started matching sellers and buyers of businesses that resulted in approximately a dozen bank sales in 1981 and 1982. In 1983, with Don Peters and Gary Gamm, he founded Investment Management Group that quickly grew to an investment advisory firm with over $1 billion in assets under management along with a robust mergers and acquisitions practice. His last entrepreneurial endeavor was to join with Messrs. Peters and Gamm to establish a Rent-A-Center operation in Hawaii which grew to five stores and was sold in 1991 following which he retired for the fourth and final time in 1991. During his business career he always had time for community service including terms as Chairman of the Institute of Logopedics and the Wichita Club. He was preceded in death by his wife, Dona, his ex-wife Helen and his daughter Rebecca. Survivors include his sister Kathleen Pipes, son Richard and wife Judy, son Tom and daughter Sara Bond, all of Wichita, son Jack and wife Diane of Dallas, TX, stepdaughter Robin Hixson and husband Everett of Ft. Scott, Kansas, stepson Mark Webber and wife Fran of San Angelo, TX, fifteen grandchildren, three step-grandchildren, twenty-two great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild, his beloved care-giver, Gail Peterson and many close friends. Family visitation from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, October 27 at Downing Lahey East, 6555 E. Central. Service 4:00 p.m., Friday, October 28, at University Congregational Church, 9209 E. 29th St. North. Private internment at Memorial Park Cemetery, Kansas City, Missouri. Memorials to: University Congregational Church, 9209 E. 29th St. North, 67226 and Larksfield Place for the benefit of employee continuing professional education, 7373 E. 29th St. North, 67226. Visitation 6:00 ~ 7:30 P.M., Thursday, October 27, Downing Lahey Mortuary East.