A long-time presenter to TEO Training seminars, when the opportunity arose for the Dunedin-based accountancy firm to buy the TEO training brand, it did.
TEO was launched 21 years ago this month as the Taxation Education Office, a joint venture between the Government and private enterprise.
When funding ran out, TEO was sold to private concerns.
Eventually, it was taken over by Gisborne accountancy firm McCullochs.
WHK bought it in December.
On Wednesday, WHK and TEO will launch in Dunedin a new "old school" training seminar on the "10 top tax questions".
Hundreds of questions were read and discussed before the top 10 were finalised, Mr Mason said in an interview.
Along with the purchase of TEO, WHK also recruited TEO Training general manager Brent Strong, from Gisborne.
Mr Strong moved south, with his partner and two young children, to oversee the training courses.
Mr Strong had worked overseas in financial services.
His partner had come from Gisborne, where her father was a shareholder in TEO with McCullochs.
They moved from London to Gisborne and now to Dunedin.
"It's been a good fit moving to Dunedin.
We have never lived in the South Island and we had to think seriously about whether we would, but we have never looked back.
We have met lots of people as a family."
As a city, Dunedin was based around education and training was part of the culture, so TEO was a good fit.
It did not matter where TEO was based.
About 300 seminars were held during the year, from Whangarei to Invercargill and down the West Coast, he said.
The seminars were held at 28 locations and there was a recognition that TEO was prepared to travel to smaller centres to provide training, Mr Strong said.
Mr Mason said TEO and WHK targeted accountancy firms which did not fit with the "big four" companies.
TEO provided practical courses aimed at small- to medium-sized businesses and accountants who dealt with everyday tax or accounting problems.
TEO had good links into the legal fraternity and the mix between accountants and lawyers at the training seminars provided a wider range of information as each group tended to ask a different style of question, he said.
