Former Wang exec opens accounting firm in Tewksbury

Mellinda Abbott, formerly of Billerica, has expanded her Lexington-based accounting business to a storefront at 1310 Main St. (Route 38) in Tewksbury. Abbott is a former accounting manager at Wang Global. SUN / Ryan McBride

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TEWKSBURY -- As a young accounting professional, she worked alongside the likes of Joe Tucci and Frank Caine at Wang Global, helping to bring the one-time tech darling out of its 1992 bankruptcy and into the waiting arms of its eventual suitor, Getronics N.V., seven years later.

Two decades later, Mellinda Abbott thrives by serving small businesses from her Lexington-based boutique firm, which recently opened a second office at 1310 Main St. (Route 38) in Tewksbury.

And she remembers exactly when it was time to run her own shop.

"My first day back from maternity leave was 9/11," she said during a recent interview at her Tewksbury office. "I had been working for a small accounting firm and I realized, 'There's no mystery to this,' and that it was time to hang my own shingle."

So as to save on overhead (and make use of her husband's construction skills), Abbott opened her first office at a building the couple owned in Lexington. They deployed the same strategy in Tewksbury late last fall, after a salon in the building they owned closed.

"I really wanted to come to this community," she said. "And I founded this practice because I want to keep accounting simple and straightforward for our clients."

Abbott, whose firm comprises three full-timers and four part-time employees, said she sees herself not just as an accountant, or even an auditor ("although I am an auditor at heart"), but as a small-business adviser.

"Clients should feel able to do what they are supposed to do, which is grow their business," she said.

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Former Wang exec opens accounting firm in Tewksbury