Arab, Alabama is a small town in Marshall County, nineteen miles south of Huntsville, Alabama on U. S. Highway 231. The town was to be named Arad in honor of it's founding citizen Arad Thompson. In 1886 when the letters for the Post Office arrived from Washington D.C., there was a "B" instead of "D". The citizens put the letters on the Post Office building and changed the name to Arab.
Al LaGrone launched an income tax return preparation business in January 1957 and called it Bara Business Service. Bara Business Service was operated out of his home in Arab, Alabama for the first two years. During the following four years, we shared office space with a Real Estate Office on North Main Street. Mr. LaGrone built and occupied our current office building in April 1962. In 1970 an addition was made to our building, doubling the office space to approximately 10,000 square feet.
Mr. LaGrone retired and sold the practice to Greg Cook (an employee of approximately ten years) in December 1994. The business operated under the name Cook & LaGrone during the transition period. Due to state regulations governing Mr. Cook's CPA license and the use of a fictitious name, LaGrone was dropped from the firm name in March 1998 (two years after the death of our Founder). Mr. Cook completely renovated the building inside and out over the next five years.
Today, Cook & Co. serves clientele in all fifty states and approximately nineteen foreign countries. We have many long standing relationships built on mutual respect and trust. We offer services in four major categories:
Accounting
Tax
Financial
Technology
We are proud of our heritage and history. Let us share it with you.
There have been many changes in the tax laws over the years that have precipitated changes in the way we do business. However, technology has had the biggest impact on changes in our operations. We think it is safe to predict more tax law changes and further improvements with technology in the future.
We have considerable investments of time and money in:
Knowledge
Technology
Resources
Let us put our knowledge, technology and resources to work for you.
