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Postscript A Good Night’s Sleep

Wash also liked to ask Itos if SGV already had lifted its rule of retiring its partners at
60. Itos would counter that by reminding Wash that “You are our idol. When you
retired from SGV, you joined corporate boards and it inspired us to follow what you
did. You showed that there is always life after SGV!”

Indeed there was, for Wash—not only after his retirement, but even after his demise.
He had told his faithful secretary Sylvia Sanchez that in the event of his passing, Itos
and SGV would take care of things, and they did. Itos consulted, of course, with the
family, and worked with Wash’s longtime aide and confidante, Marlu Balmaceda,
to give Wash a proper send-off so people could pay their respects—his legions of
associates, colleagues, admirers, and the generations of SGV employees that he had
led and inspired. “Even in death, it was like Wash helped with the planning. It took
two weeks to get everything sorted out in Canada, and so we had two weeks to
prepare for his return.”

As a final honor, Itos Cruz assumed the lease and maintained Wash’s office, along with
that of his secretary Sylvia (who, sadly, died a few years after Wash). “We’re keeping
it as he left it, as a kind of museum and memorial to Wash and everything he did.”

And so Wash lives on at SGV, in spirit and in a legacy of excellence as palpable and as
pervasive as the legendary turtles and owls that crowd his room.

“Step on the gas!”

th
Entering SGV in 1987 after placing 12 in the CPA board examinations, Wilson
Tan spent ten years doing audit work before the Firm sent him abroad for his MBA
in Switzerland. When he returned, he switched to consulting and risk management,
and was admitted to the partnership in 2000.

He began encountering Wash more often when he assumed the post of Assurance
Head and later, as Deputy Managing Partner and Vice Chairman. The familiarity
didn’t necessarily mean that things would go more easily for Wilson—quite the
opposite. Wilson recalls that “Wash had a friend, an investment banker named Paul
Kazarian, who was helping him with his fund-raising campaigns here, involving about
a million US dollars. Paul’s private equity hedge fund company was heavily invested

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