Chesapeake Tax & Financial Services Opens Millersville Office

Chesapeake Tax & Financial Services, a longstanding accounting firm based in Catonsville, opened a Millersville location in the fall of 2025.

For father-daughter certified public accountant (CPA) duo Pat and Laura Svehla, the key to their successful business is in the intangibles.

“Everybody has a little bit of a personality beyond the stereotypical accountant in our office,” Laura shared. “I think that helps set us apart quite a bit.”

Individual tax preparation makes up the lion’s share of their work, but their services go well beyond tax season. For business clients, they offer tax planning, financial statement services, payroll, financial planning and consulting, and general accounting.

A fully licensed broker through Ameriprise, the business can also assist with investments and retirement planning.

Pat Svehla established Chesapeake Tax & Financial Services in 1991. As society has largely trended in a more corporate direction, he prides himself on offering a more personal approach to his clients’ needs.

“You’re not calling getting an answering machine; you’re getting a human being,” Pat said. “And it’s probably a human being you’ve talked to before.”

Pat had to wait patiently for one of the voices answering those calls to be his daughter.

Following her graduation from the University of Maryland, Laura pursued a career with a corporate financial firm – one of the “high-rise firms” Pat’s small business sought to counter.

She soon discovered that wasn’t the right fit and joined Pat, just in time for the 2013 tax season.

“I threw out the red carpet,” Pat recalled fondly. “It was something I was hoping for my entire life.”

Laura found the warmer, more inviting work environment as motivation to expand her depth of knowledge in the field, to include obtaining her master’s degree and eventually sitting for the CPA exam.

“The way that we approach tax and accounting, it comes from an educational perspective of working with the client to try and help them understand why certain outcomes occur and how we can manipulate things along the way to get the outcome that’s best desired,” Laura said. “I saw how what I was doing can help people.”

As their flagship office in Catonsville has boomed over the years, expansion became an obvious next step. The decision to do so in Anne Arundel County came with a little lucky timing.

Laura, who lives in Severna Park with her husband and three young children, had been commuting to Catonsville daily when three houses on Veterans Highway were listed for sale as commercial property.

“We instantly saw the potential here,” Laura said of the new office, which offers a strikingly similar vibe to what they have in Catonsville. “The next step is expanding our business into this area and building it up to the level that Catonsville is.”

Growing the firm over three decades has required balancing the personalized approach and small-town feel with keeping up with current trends, particularly in technology.

“I made the conscious decision years ago with the advent of (Laura’s) employment that I have to surround myself with young people, or else this thing is going to go away,” Pat said, jokingly referring to himself as the “old guy” of their team of 10.

This includes tracking developments in artificial intelligence that could benefit their industry, a charge taken up by Laura.

While she keeps a keen eye on advancements in the field, Laura is grateful for the ethical foundation to accounting laid by her father.

“You run into so many grey areas in the accounting world, so many people that want to push the limits on things,” Laura said. “I always admired my dad’s clear mind and the way he interprets the world and right and wrong.”

For Pat, the opportunity to grow the business with his daughter is a lifelong dream come true.

“My heart just blows up. How proud could a father possibly be?” Pat said.

To learn more about Chesapeake Tax & Financial Services, go to www.chesapeaketax.net.