Looking to the Year Ahead

By Susan Jacobson, CPA

Greetings. I am Susan Jacobson, a tax principal for the Westlake office of Holthouse Carlin & Van Trigt LLP and the incoming president of our chapter. I first of all have to thank all of the partners of our firm for their support of my participation in the chapter and CalCPA. I could not have come this far with CalCPA without their support.

As has been said by many past presidents, I can’t believe how time flies, and here I am president of the chapter. It is a very important year to be president with CalCPA’s 100th anniversary and gala celebration. I am looking forward to the celebration and hope that all of you can go to the event and join in the festivities. If you are interested in attending, you can get more information and register here.

As incoming president, I have a couple of goals to share with you. The first deals with the profession;s future.

Because of our national and international economic situation, our chapter has suffered tremendous losses to our scholarship funds. We have an urgent need to rebuild these funds and give back to the students who need the help now more than ever. I would like to acknowledge that we made a choice to deplete our scholarship fund this year and give all $11,000 to deserving students. Unfortunately, we had to postpone our awards night because of the Santa Barbara fires, so I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our scholarship recipients: Craig Tarnutzer (Moorpark College); Michelle Chouinard (Santa Barbara City College); Natasha Susoev (UCSB); Tyler DeGroot (California Lutheran University); Lorena Santiago (California Lutheran University); William Lycette (UCSB); and Stephanie Schick (Westmont). We will reschedule the awards ceremony at an upcoming chapter event.

We are planning an additional fund-raising event this year. It will be an ABC, or Attorney, Banker and CPA, event and will offer sponsorship opportunities. This type of event has been very successful for our sister chapter, Central Coast. With the help of our program associate, the extraordinary Rita Williams, who helped organize the Central Coast ABC gathering, we hope to have an equally successful event for our chapter.

Along with our past presidents, my second goal is to continue marketing to our young emerging professionals. They are the future of CalCPA, and, therefore, obtaining their membership and participation in the chapter are key to our continued success. Tania Dadayan Shapiro of Soares, Sandall, Bernacchi & Petrovich will chair the YEP Committee again this year, and she has several events planned.

My last goal is to continue to build and support the financial literacy efforts in our area. I have been our chapter champion for the CalCPA Financial Literacy Committee for the past four years. I also remain on the Ventura and Santa Barbara Financial Literacy Council, which sponsored a California Saves campaign in March and April for low to moderate-income families of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Finally, a big thank you to past president Tom Letus for a job well-done serving our chapter this past year. I also thank the 2008–09 board of directors and committee chairs for their dedication and support of our chapter. Of course there is never enough to say about our real leader, Rita Williams. Thank you Rita for all that you do for us.

Please let me know of any comments or concerns that you would like me to take to the CalCPA Council meeting June 18–19 in San Francisco. I wish everyone the best.
— Susan Jacobson, CPA

This entry was posted on Friday, May 22nd, 2009 at 5:08 pm and is filed under President's Message. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.