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1
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What made you decide to go into the accounting profession?
I decided to go into accounting in my freshman year in college, after taking my first accounting class and looking at the options that accounting gave me. I enjoyed working with numbers and had an interest in the intersection of numbers, business activities and the law—thus, my interests went more towards the tax related aspects of accounting.
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2
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What makes your job great?
The great part about the job is being able to work with a client to help them accomplish their goals or even being to help them understand what their goals truly are, and to be involved in an area where new challenges are constantly emerging. If you don't like change, tax accounting probably isn't for you—but if you do want to be facing a constantly changing landscape accounting is for you.
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3
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What advice would you have for those considering entering the CPA profession?
It helps to view accounting in the larger context of how it fits into various other aspects of life—that is, accounting generally works to help someone or some organization meet their overriding goal. As such, you have to be willing to look beyond the numbers and be able to integrate what you are doing with what other people are trying to accomplish—and help them to get there.
That presents both the challenge of having to know more than just the technical rules and standards required for accounting and the opportunity to deal with interesting concepts in a wide number of areas.
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4
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Describe how you have made a difference by being a CPA.
I've been able to help clients focus on accomplishing what is important to them by being able to relieve them of certain required compliance issues, helping them to interpret what their accounting data is telling them to help them meet their overall objective (be it running a business, operating a nonprofit organization, etc.) or taking advantage of some of the opportunities they are offered by incentives in the tax law to reach goals.
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5
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Explain any obstacles you had to overcome to get to where you are today.
I needed to become aware of the fact that you can never truly know “everything” there is to know about any field of any depth—that the most important thing you can learn is how to learn what you need to know.
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6
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What are your major professional accomplishments?
I have been involved in a number of projects for professional organizations, starting with being the volunteer sysop of the AICPA's Accountants' Forum on CompuServe back in the mid-1990s, followed by an appointment to the AICPA Tax Section's Tax Technology Committee and the AICPA's Top Ten Technologies project. Those led to a number of other projects and speaking engagements for the Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma and Virginia state societies of CPAs.
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7
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What interests or activities are you involved in outside of work?
I am involved in a number of online discussion groups on various topics and moderate the usenet group misc.invest.financial-plan. As well, I am involved in my local church (Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Phoenix) and am known to enjoy watching a number of sporting activities, though my activities are pretty well limited to taking daily walks around my neighborhood.
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8
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Are there any other interesting things about yourself or your career that you would like to share with other members, potential members, and students?
I'm one of the few native Arizonans that you run into around here, having been born at the old Williams Air Force Base back when it was an Air Force base and when it was located out of the county. In fact, my birth certificate says I was born in Chandler, Arizona (what they put on Williams’ birth certificates back then) even though today the physical location where I was born is now inside the city limits of Mesa.
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9
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What is your most meaningful volunteer experience?
Being able to render assistance to those that ask for it on some of my online groups, as well as the work helping to create a “civil” discussion group for personal finance related topics on the newsgroup I co-moderate.
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10
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How do you balance your personal and professional life?
I try to be sure that I take time every day for personal time and activities with my spouse—that is, to make sure that it is a priority in my life and not just something that is done with the leftover time.
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11
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What have you learned from your mentors?
I learned from my accounting mentors what was expected of a CPA in terms of integrity on the job and the commitment to have a skill level in keeping with both the clients’ and the public's expectations that we are given.
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12
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What do CPAs need now to be successful in the future?
CPAs need to have a commitment to a set of standards that set them above those who have not obtained that designation. If we do not treat the title with respect and act accordingly, we'll find that others will also not treat it that way.
As well, individual CPAs need to be attuned to truly serving the interests of the appropriate parties, be that users of financial statements for those doing attest work or the individual interests of tax clients, and to do so while maintaining an appropriate professional balance in all situations.
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