AUBURN — There was a time in the 1970s when it looked like Earl Austin might step away from Austin Associates, the accounting firm he founded 20 years earlier.

There was a time in the ’80s when it looked that way, too. And again in the ’90s and again in the years that followed.

It didn’t happen, though. Earl Austin just kept working.

“He worked 60 tax seasons,” his son Steve said. “Sixty. That’s a big thing in public accounting, how many tax seasons you can do. He did them well into his 80s. He was a machine. He was the best accountant I’ve ever seen.”

Austin, who founded the firm in 1950, died this week at the age of 89.

Phil Doucette, managing partner of Austin Associates, said when he came aboard in 1999, Earl was in his 70s but showed no sign of winding down.

“He was still going strong,” Doucette said. “He was still working tax seasons. Some people retire and go away, but he never did that. He cared right up until the end.”

Friends, former colleagues and family members remembered Earl, not just as a tax machine, but as a man who established the way the firm would be run, who cared deeply for his community and who fostered a family atmosphere at the practice.

“He was like a father to all of us,” said George Richardson, who worked at Austin Associates for 44 years, “the greatest mentor you could ask for. He just cared about the people — the individual successes, the individual accomplishments. He tried to make every employee he had a better person.”

“This place has always been a real family-friendly place,” Doucette said. “He established it that way.”

Earl decided early on that employees and their families need an extra day of paid time off around the holidays. They did it that way then, and they do it that way now.

He thought it was important to support local sports, a tradition that continues at Austin Associates today. Earl liked his team members to volunteer on various community boards, to have cookouts for the children and get food to the needy. They did it then, they do it now.

“We all do it because we just want to. We consider it part of our jobs,” Doucette said. “That all comes from Earl, either directly or indirectly.”

Earl died at a hospice house, Steve Austin said. During the months that he was there, Earl’s impact on the community was evident as a stream of visitors was almost nonstop.

“He had company every day, people coming to see him,” Steve said. “He was a father figure for a lot of people. He coached Little League and flag football for a lot of years; he had the business. He touched a lot of lives.”

Some of the lives he touched were those of clients, harried men and women trying to get their finances sorted out or their taxes filed on time.

“Clients had the utmost respect for the man,” Richardson said. “Everywhere he went, the clients just thought the world of him.”

Today, Richardson said, the sons and daughters — or grandsons and granddaughters — of some of those early clients are still taking their business to Austin Associates; three generations of customers put their financial faith in Earl’s practice and continue to do so.

“That’s quite a salute to the man,” Richardson said.

“He was a friend to all,” said longtime Austin friend Malcolm Philbrick. “He didn’t consider anyone a client, he considered them friends. He was Uncle Earl.”

Some of the people Earl coached as children would later come to see him 20, 30 or 40 years later to visit and to thank him for influencing their young lives. Same with the former employees and former clients. People tended to remember Earl and the way he influenced their lives.

“You couldn’t ask for a better friend,” Richardson said. “He was like a second father to me and I wasn’t the only one.”

The influence Earl had on those earlier generations is evident, friends say, but so is the influence he’s had on the people who worked for him, and who still work for the practice.

“Employees come and go, no question,” Richardson said. “But the core group of people there are just so loyal to that firm and to that man and what he represented.”

He cared for the community in which he lived and did business, his friends said. That may be understating things a bit: The community involvement portion of Earl’s bio takes up most of a page.

“He was really engaged with the community,” said longtime family friend Mark Antoine. “Really engaged with people. Somehow, he had a gift for remembering who everybody was. Even when he wasn’t feeling well, he always wanted to know how everyone was, how everyone was doing.

“He was a gentleman’s gentleman,” Antoine said. “Just an incredible person.”

“I don’t know anyone who didn’t like Earl Austin,” said Fern Masse, a former coach who worked with Austin on the local Hall of Fame and other sports endeavors. “He was a true gentleman. The Twin Cities, and the city of Auburn in particular, are really going to miss him. He was a great man.”

Doucette said he visited with his former boss and mentor in what would be the final days of Earl’s life. During those visits, Earl was still interested in what was going on at the practice and with the people who work there. As it turns out, Earl never stepped away from the practice. Not until the very end.

“He loved it,” Doucette said. “It was his passion.”