Many years before Trip Farmer became a partner at HHM Certified Public Accountants in Chattanooga, he learned the value not just of a dollar – but of a dollar sensibly invested.
The casual reader might assume the young Farmer followed a timeless entrepreneurial rite of passage, such as saving his allowance to buy a lawnmower, then spending summer vacations tending neighbors’ yards.
But no. Farmer invested in a mutual fund.
“I was in eighth grade, so I just wanted to buy baseball cards,” Farmer recalls. “But my dad taught me what a mutual fund was, and I started investing in one. I’d check the paper each week to see how I was doing and read the statements when they came in the mail.”
Farmer did collect baseball cards as a teen. It was the 1980s, so players like Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire and others made it into his collection. But he saved most of his earnings, which grew over time after he started his first job at age 15.
Again, the casual reader might assume Farmer’s parents sat him down and told him it was time to learn the value of hard work and productive use of time.
But no. He told them he’d found a job and would be needing rides to work.
“I played soccer growing up, but by my sophomore year of high school, it wasn’t fun anymore,” Farmer recalls. “So, I found a guy who owned a greenhouse and asked if he needed help. My parents thought I was crazy.”
At the time, Farmer was living in Augusta, Georgia. His father, a career Army medical doctor, was frequently reassigned, so the family moved every few years. But work grounded Farmer in a way the constant relocations and ever-changing schools never did.
Initially, Farmer’s mother picked him up after school, drove him to the greenhouse, and picked him up again when he was done. By his junior year, though, he’d saved enough to buy a car.
“I tell this story to my kids because most teenagers don’t realize how spoiled they are,” Farmer says. “But I was a big saver, and I was really proud to spend $5,000 on a used Mazda 323.”
Finding his fit in finance
Today, Farmer drives a Palisade or F150 to HHM’s Chattanooga campus, where he works with the firm’s management advisory services division to help businesses navigate major growth decisions – things like mergers, acquisitions, expansions and succession planning. He also handles the financial nuts and bolts behind those moves, including deal structuring, forecasting and evaluating new opportunities.
But as Farmer approached college, he wasn’t picturing a career as a CPA. Rather, he knew only one thing for sure: he didn’t want to be a doctor.
“My dad started as a family practitioner delivering babies, and by the end of his career, he was a two-star general and commander of Walter Reed in D.C.,” says Farmer. “I wasn’t going to be a doctor. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew it wasn’t that.”
Farmer found clarity after choosing to study business at Covenant College – a small liberal arts school he selected over bigger-name options like Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech and Auburn.
“Finance has always been an interest of mine,” Farmer says. “But I didn’t even know what accounting was until I took the class. Fortunately, it came pretty naturally. There’d be a test the next day – I’d study for a bit and do fine. Meanwhile, classmates were saying, ‘Man, I studied for three days straight.’ I thought, ‘This isn’t that hard.’ That’s when it clicked: ‘If this comes easy to me, maybe I should keep going.’”
Farmer’s years at Covenant gave him more than just an academic foundation for the career ahead. A self-described shy kid, he arrived on campus determined to push past his quiet nature and be intentionally outgoing. In doing so, he cultivated a virtual alter ego – one that surfaces whenever he puts on a suit and steps into meetings with colleagues or clients.
“I came in with a class of 300 and made a point to be outgoing, which was against my nature,” Farmer says. “I had to push myself and work at it. But that experience shaped me. I’d still say I’m personally an introvert, but professionally, I’m an extrovert. When you meet with clients or prospects, you’re on the spot. You’re talking through accounting, finances, taxes and strategy. Maybe they’re buying or selling a business. It can be a lot. But I tell people, ‘You can learn how to do it.’ Not everything has to be innate.”
A self-taught generalist
As Farmer neared the end of college, he discovered a new passion that would shape his path for years to come: business books. He didn’t read casually or for leisure – he read voraciously, consuming titles on investing, economics and business success. He tore through works by American investor Peter Lynch, Warren Buffett and many others. The specific topics varied, but they all served a single purpose: to sharpen his business acumen.
“One the things I’m trying to push folks here to do is invest in themselves,” says Farmer. “We do a lot of training, but we also push people to do a lot of their own continuing education. You have to read books. You have to read business news. You have to be attuned to what’s going on in the economy and in the market and with the legal issues of the day.”
Farmer’s reading not only fuels his innate curiosity but has also empowered him to broaden the scope of his accounting practice. Rather than being confined to a narrow range of industries or a fixed set of tasks, he’s grown into what he calls a “generalist.”
“If you’re going to work with Chattanooga clients, you’re going to touch all kinds of things. So, while I have concentrations in real estate, construction, manufacturing and private equity, I can just as easily have lunch with a banker and talk about banking and interest rates. Or I can chat with a business owner about the economy or the stock market. The only topic I’m not good at is sports. If they want to talk about how the Vols are doing, I’m out.”
From bookkeeping to tax season
As his time at Covenant drew to an end, Farmer wasted no time securing work as an accountant. The summer after his junior year, an acquaintance connected him with a CPA who was launching a bookkeeping firm and needed a staff accountant. Farmer joined the venture and remained with the business for five years.
Much like his reading habits, the job exposed Farmer to new areas of knowledge that would prove invaluable later in his career. He earned his CPA license, deepened his expertise in bookkeeping, worked with a wide range of clients and developed a strong command of the technology that underpins modern accounting.
In 2001, Farmer decided it was time to move on to bigger and better things.
“I was 26 and a CPA, but I’d never done a tax return or an audit because I’d been focused on bookkeeping. So I approached two firms, one of which was HHM.”
Both firms expressed interest in Farmer’s technology background. When he followed up, the first said it wasn’t hiring, but HHM had a tech company called SRC at the time and offered him a position there.
Farmer didn’t realize it then, but he’d just found his professional home. As a young person, he’d been moved from one house to another; later, he left his family to attend college and spent a season with the bookkeeping firm. But HHM would become the place where his education, hands-on experience and self-driven learning would converge – allowing him to build a career under one roof and within a single culture that would support and propel him forward.
As soon as HHM released him from its technology arm, anyway.
Farmer was willing to do taxes, audits – whatever the firm needed. But SRC sold and implemented accounting systems. So for about a year, Farmer traveled to client sites, selling software and helping businesses integrate new systems.
“It was good work,” he says, “but I really wanted to learn how to do taxes.”
Each tax season, Farmer pleaded with his bosses for the chance to help. When they finally said yes, it came with a caveat: they still needed him in the tech role. So he squeezed in tax work at night and on weekends while continuing with the software.
That experience cemented his interest. “After that season, I went back and said, ‘I want to leave SRC. I really want to do taxes.’ And they were gracious enough to make that change.”
With the transition made, Farmer threw himself into the work. He was single at the time, so he packed his days, meeting people for coffee or lunch to build relationships, then returning to the office to catch up on client work. HHM supported his initiative.
“They gave me a long leash to go out and build a client base,” he says. “All those extroverted college days came in handy.”
A life without borders
For the first decade of his career, Farmer paid his dues. His single years weren’t defined by carefree freedom but by an unwavering commitment to his work. But at 32, he stepped away from his steadfast bachelorhood to become a husband – and, in time, a father of four.
Despite the added responsibilities that come with having a family, Farmer doesn’t subscribe to the idea of dividing his world into neatly separated compartments.
“Everybody these days wants to talk about work-life balance,” he says. “You’re supposed to split everything. I don’t buy into that.”
For Farmer, life and work aren’t opposing forces to be balanced – they’re parts of a whole, blended and inseparable. Whether he’s advising clients, coaching business owners, or making breakfast for his children, he brings his full self to every role.
“I’m a professional everywhere I go,” he adds. “I don’t stop being a CPA when I leave the office.”
That mindset shapes how Farmer organizes his days. He might wake up early to knock out a project while the house is quiet, then shift into dad mode at seven to help get the children off to school before heading to the office.
“When people start talking about work-life balance, what they’re really talking about is safeguarding their personal time,” he says. “They want to make the work box as small as possible. But I get a lot of joy out of my work.”
For Farmer, work-life balance is not about minimizing work to make room for life – it’s about allowing meaningful work to be part of a fulfilling life. “I’m not at a job I don’t like; I’m at HHM,” he says. “I enjoy getting things done and helping people.”
Farmer and his wife, Lisa, have carved out a personal haven in Chickamauga, where they bought a farm after the pandemic. “There’s always something fun to do down there,” he says. We have donkeys, goats, dogs, cats – plenty to keep us busy and entertained.”
They also tailor their time together around their children’s evolving interests. One of Farmer’s sons has developed a passion for cars, so they’ve taken on a project vehicle he’s learning to restore. “We’re also trying to push the kids to read more,” he adds with a smile. “Though, if it were up to them, they’d probably just play video games.
Farmer discovered his passion somewhere between investing in a mutual fund as an eighth grader and becoming a partner at a respected accounting firm. Now, when he shares his hard-earned insights with the young accountants at HHM, he distills them all into a simple philosophy: “Pay your dues.”
“A lot of people are trying to follow their passion. You hear that all the time, and I’m not criticizing it. But I think passion comes from being good at something – and being good at something takes time. I fell into accounting, started doing bookkeeping, got good at that, then came here and started doing tax work. Over time, I became good at that, too. And now, I’m passionate about what I do.”