When Schwieters went to work for Arthur Andersen in 1965, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey was one of the firm’s clients. Many of the performers were from Eastern Europe. After their tours were over, the U.S. government wouldn’t let them leave this country until they paid taxes on the income they earned here. Young Schwieters was assigned to ride the circus train and fill out the performers’ tax returns.

It was the first of may assignments Schwieters would undertake for Andersen in his 35 years there.

Schwieters grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, His parents sent him to a Jesuit school in Wisconsin and urged him to attend a Jesuit university. His father lobbied for Notre Dame; his mother pushed Holy Cross. In a judicious move typical of Schwieter’s career, he chose Georgetown University. He stayed in Washington, DC, to attend George Washington University Law School and planned to practice law. He studied accounting as a means to that end. “A CPA licenses is a good thing to have if you want to practice corporate law,” he says.

Schwieters spent his first six months at Arthur Andersen doing audits – and hated it. After a year he moved into business consulting and found the niche he loved. He became a partner in 1974 and headed Andersen’s Washington tax practice till 1989. He was the office managing partner until retiring in 2000.

Over the years, Schwieters worked with clients as varied as Snyder Communications, Riggs Bank, Clark Construction, AARP, and the Kennedy Center. “I loved the fact that you could really get involved as an adviser to businesspeople,” he says.

He nurtured his clients and his firm. “I always felt that the greatest joy was to take people much smarter than you are and mentor them and watch them grow,” he says.

Schwieters felt the same way about Washington’s business community. He served as chair of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, focusing on regional cooperation and transportation. He was vice chair of the Washington Research Center, a member of the executive committee of the Federal City Council, and an active leader in other community groups. As chair of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s fundraising ball, he helped transform the event into a moneymaking crowd-pleaser with topflight entertainment. The event now raises $3 million a year.

Since he retired, Schwieters has become a vice chair of Perseus, a DC- and New York-based merchant bank and private equity-fund-management company, and serves on corporate boards.

His secret for business success? “I was luckier than most people,” Schwieters says. His clients would say they were the lucky ones – having someone so caring and competent in their corner.