Firm Leadership
HLB strives to be a firm that clients feel comfortable talking to about business and other issues that they face. We understand that those issues are not limited to the preparation of a tax return or the audit of a financial statement. That is the reason that the partners in our firm have broad based experience in both financial and tax matters.
Robert P. Brezina
Rob is a 1986 graduate of the University of Houston with over twenty-two years of public accounting experience. He is a founding partner of the firm and serves as our managing partner and the leader of our financial services industry group. Rob is both an assurance partner and tax practitioner and brings eight years experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers and fourteen years at HLB to his clients. In addition to the financial services industry, Rob has experience in a wide diversity of industries, including construction contracting, temporary personnel/staff leasing, and high technology. Rob has extensive SEC reporting experience and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants and its Houston Chapter.
Stanley R. Langston
Stan is a 1980 graduate of Lamar University with over twenty-six years of public account experience. Stan is a founding partner of the firm and leads our oil and gas and employee benefit plan services industry groups. Stan, like the other partners in our firm, is both an assurance partner and tax practitioner. He has twelve years experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers and fourteen years at HLB and appreciates the needs of middle market clients. In addition to oil and gas and employee benefit plan services, Stan has experience in a wide diversity of industries, including construction contracting, government contracting and not-for-profit. Stan has extensive SEC reporting experience and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants and its Houston Chapter.
Jack E. Leal
Jack obtained a Bachelors Degree in Accounting and Political Science from Houston Baptist University. He has fifteen years of accounting experience in both public accounting and industry. He began his career at Deloitte & Touche, L.L.P. working with both public and privately held companies in a wide diversity of industries, including contractors, services, real estate, financial services, and not-for-profit.
Jack provides tax, audit and general consulting services to emerging businesses in the small to middle market sector. He has assisted in initial public offerings of securities as well as the issuance of debt securities including the preparation of related SEC filings.
Jack is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants and its Houston Chapter and the American Association of Hispanic CPA’s.
John L. Lovelace
John has a Bachelors Degree in Accounting from Texas A&M University and 42 years of diversified public accounting experience. He has been with Thomas Leger & Co. LLP for 38 years providing services that include auditing, accounting, documentation and testing of internal controls, tax planning and consulting, Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, mergers & acquisitions, bankruptcies and other consulting services. John also spent approximately four years with Price Waterhouse & Co.
John served three years on the SEC Peer Review Committee of the SEC Practice Section of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountant’s, which was responsible for monitoring the quality of services provided by Certified Public Accounting firms that practiced before the Securities and Exchange Commission. This function is now performed by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
John has had significant audit and tax experience in a broad range of industries that include including oil and gas, manufacturing, real estate, wholesale, retail, high-technology, software development, financial services, and consulting. He also has significant experience with companies with international operations in countries such as the Peoples Republic of China, Europe and Mexico.