David Solomons (1912-1995).

Last February, the international accounting community lost one of its true giants with the death of Professor David Solomons at age 82. His accounting career spanned more than 60 years, from his 1932 graduation from the London School of Economics (LSE), until his announcement two weeks before his death that "I shall not be doing any further professional work."

Solomons was a statesman in the finest sense of the word. He was an active contributor to the profession not only in the United States and his native England, but also in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and throughout Europe and Asia, where he lectured, consulted or served as a visiting professor.

He got his start as a teacher in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II. A captain in the Royal Army, he was captured in June 1942, and during his 2 1/2 years as a POW he taught economics and accountancy to his fellow POWs.

After the war, he taught accounting at the LSE until 1955, when he became the first professor of accounting at the University of Bristol. In 1959 he emigrated to the United States to become a professor of accounting at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He served as chair of the accounting department from 1969 to 1975 and was named the Arthur Young (now Ernst & Young) Professor of Accounting in 1974. Solomons remained at Wharton until his "official" retirement in 1983 at the age of 70.

After retirement, he served as a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council; conducted seminars for Financial Accounting Standards Board members and staff, taught and lectured throughout the world; served as the American Accounting Association's Distinguished International Lecturer; chaired the AAA's 1986 international conference on standard setting for financial reporting; presented papers at the European Accounting Association's annual meetings in Stuttgart and Venice; and wrote two books, as well as a two-volume anthology of his papers on accounting and accounting education.

While Solomons made notable contributions in many areas of accounting, perhaps his most significant were to the standards-setting process. He was often referred to as the "father of the FASB" for his role as the primary drafter of the Wheat Commission's 1972 report, "Establishing Financial Accounting Standards--Report of the Study on Establishment of Accounting Principles," which recommended the establishment of the FASB, the FASAC and the Financial Accounting Foundation. He also played a major role in the establishment of the American Institute of CPAs auditing standards board.

He was a major contributor to the conceptual framework of many standard-setting bodies. He was the principal author of FASB Concepts Statement no. 2, Qualitative Characteristics of Accounting Information, and was involved in the development of Concepts Statement no. 5, Recognition and Measurement in Financial Statements of Business Enterprises, although he disagreed with many of its conclusions in a scathing article in the Journal of Accountancy (Jun.86, page 114). His major contributions to management accounting practitioners included his award-winning 1965 study for the Financial Executives Research Foundation, "Divisional Performance: Measurement and Control." He earned the AICPA's 1969 Notable Contribution to Accounting Literature Award for this seminal study on how to evaluate and control decentralized operations.

Solomons is the only person to have served as the president of both the American Accounting Association (1977 to 1978) and its British counterpart, the British Accounting Association (1955 to 1958).

In 1980 the AAA named Solomons an Outstanding Accounting Educator; in 1989 he received the International Award of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales; and in 1992 he was inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame. In addition, in 1979 lie received the Journal of Accoutancy's Lawler Award for his November 1978 article, "The Politicization of Accounting" (page 65).

Solomons is survived by his wife and two children.