CPAs With Over 60 Years of Combined Experience

Today, CPA firm Uselton, Clay & Bright, is headed by senior partners Keith Uselton and Suzie Jones Clay, who bring over 60 years of combined experience to the firm, but they trace the firms roots and principals back to June 1947. Following industry traditions, the firm has changed names over the years to reflect the current managing (or recently retired) partners, but has operated continuously since Walter C. Coppinger joined Jim Smith to form Smith & Coppinger CPA. Smith later left the partnership, which became Walter C. Coppinger, CPA. The firm started in Rockwood, TN.

In 1986, Cleston Daniels bought the firm, and opened a new office in Nashville. The resulting regional CPA firm served Nashville, Madison, Rockwood, Kingsport, and Johnson City in Tennessee and parts of southwest Virginia. The name became Cleston Daniels & Associates.

That was the same year Keith Uselton joined the firm as senior accountant. He was transferred from Nashville to Rockwood to manage the former Coppinger office in Rockwood in 1989.

Also in 1989, David Pitzer joined the firm as a partner, and the name was changed again, to Daniels & Pitzer. Suzie Jones Clay joined the firm a few years later in 1992 as an administrative assistant, with a career goal to become a CPA.

The following year, 1993, Keith bought out David Pitzer’s interest in the firm, and it became Daniels & Uselton.

By 2002, Cleston Daniels was ready to retire, and Suzie had achieved her goal of CPA, and became a full partner in what would be called Daniels, Uselton & Clay, honoring Daniels’ years of service. At the time, the firm had their main office in Kingston, Tennessee.

In 2013, the firm expanded back into the Nashville market when Daniels, Uselton & Clay merged with Nashville-based Collingsworth & Bright. The new association was called Uselton, Clay & Bright, CPAs and Consultants, and maintains offices in Nashville and Kingston, Tennessee serving clients throughout Tennessee and the entire country, now for 70 years. Clyde Bright retired in 2015.

Uselton, Clay & Bright leverages the full power of cloud-based technology to serve clients throughout the United States, providing services to entrepreneurs, partnerships, manufacturers, corporations, not for profits, recording artists and individuals with a full range of services including business management, tax solutions, business valuations, estate management, bookkeeping, auditing, financial statements and IRS representation.