Williams & Callan, a local accounting firm with about 600 clients, has changed hands.

As of Jan. 2, the firm is owned by Jeffrey Cole, a certified public accountant who is moving from North Carolina to take over the business.

The accounting firm has been on the island since the 1970s and has changed hands several times. Former owners Digby Williams and Mike Callan purchased it in 2002 and have a branch in West Seattle as well.

In 2007, Williams and Callan also founded SwizzNet, a cloud hosting company for accountants and bookkeepers. SwizzNet has grown substantially, Callan said, and the pair recently decided to sell their Vashon office in order to focus more on SwizzNet.

“The business is now to a point where I can no longer split my time between the two companies,” said Callan, who managed the Vashon branch, in a recent letter to clients. Callan plans to move to Florida, where he will focus on his work as CEO of SwizzNet, while Williams will continue to manage the West Seattle office.

Cole has been licensed as a CPA for 20 years and recently sold his own accounting firm with offices in Robbinsville, North Carolina, and Blairsville, Georgia. Cole and his wife are originally from the Puget Sound area and have been hoping to return for some time, he said, to be closer to family and to help care for his wife’s mother, who lives in Port Orchard. When Cole learned that the Williams & Callan branch was for sale, it seemed like a perfect opportunity.

“This just made a lot of sense,” he said. “It’s an established practice with an outstanding reputation.”

In addition to his accounting background, Cole is an ordained minister with a master’s degree in divinity and is a chaplain in the National Guard. He founded a Cherokee Indian Baptist church in North Carolina, and before starting his accounting firm, he was chief financial officer of The Master’s Mission, a worldwide missions organization headquartered in North Carolina.

He is also an active volunteer and has served on the boards of a domestic abuse shelter, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the Cherokee language and an organization that serves amputees.

Cole plans to move his family, including his three children, to Vashon this June. He noted that his family currently lives in a small town in North Carolina that he called similar to Vashon.

“To plug into a place that is a small community is attractive to us,” he said.

Both Cole and Callan said that other than the name, clients shouldn’t notice any significant changes at the firm, as all nine staff members are staying there.

“Their experience is going to be unchanged,” Callan said.