KMSS was founded in 1986 by four partners – Bruce Kenway, Ray Mack, Barry Slusarchuk and Cal Stewart. They were already a seasoned group. All had worked together previously, and their accounting experience went back as far as the early 1970s. KMSS was located in Calgary, Alberta – where it remains today.

The founding partners set out to create “more than just your typical accounting firm”. From the beginning, the firm’s service offering included not only general accounting but tax expertise and business advisory services, because the founding partners understood that their clients would require a wide range of services.

KMSS’s business model of operating as a small, very hands-on firm proved successful in the Calgary economy, and it soon began to grow and add partners. The partners made the strategic decision to remain locally-focused and to develop all the in-house expertise necessary to serve owner-managed businesses, while pursuing a diversified client base built on strong relationships. This business model served the firm and its clients very well – today KMSS still has clients who were with the firm at its inception.

Over the decades KMSS encountered the same economic opportunities and pressures as Alberta’s resource- and export-driven economy. The firm was able to achieve good, steady, manageable growth.

By the turn of the millennium, KMSS had eight partners and approximately 50 team members. That year, KMSS made its largest acquisition, of a Banff-based CA firm that was serving the Bow Valley. In 2010 KMSS relocated the Banff office to Canmore.

As of late 2011 KMSS had 14 partners and a total of 71 team members. After a quarter-century of serving the needs of its clients, KMSS remains a full-service, independent, locally-based firm that’s owned and operated by local people, serves locally-based businesses, and is geographically focused on Calgary and the Bow Valley.