Thank You

By Mark Erickson, CPA

It is with a deep sense of humility and a grateful heart that I say thank you for allowing me to serve as chapter president this past year. It has been an honor and privilege, as well as personally rewarding. I am pleased at the many accomplishments of our leadership team, and the hard-working staff at CalCPA, over the past year. We had so many that gave so much of their time and talents. Please allow me to re-visit some of these exciting accomplishments.

The year started with our leadership retreat where CalCPA Chair Greg Burke shared his strategic plan and vision with the chapter’s leadership team. He provided us with a framework to better focus our efforts at a chapter level. To continue our emphasis on networking opportunities, we hosted several social events at Dave and Buster’s in Ontario. These were all well attended and offered students and professionals alike the opportunity to develop valuable relationships and have a great time in the process.

Our chapter was the first to webcast a chapter meeting, which we did during our September meeting on peer review. There were several who participated in the webcast and their feedback was very positive. Next was our Young and Emerging Professionals seminar that provided different tracks for students and working professionals. The event attracted more than 170 participants, many of whom said it provided real value. Students were privileged to hear many of the important changes impacting our profession from Don Driftmier, the then-president of the California Board of Accountancy.

Driftmier returned to the chapter, along with Bruce Allen, CalCPA’s director of government relations, to provide a presentation on the “state of the profession” to our local members. The chapter was again innovative by recording this event and posting it as a podcast on our website. We also went on to post our December tax meeting as a podcast.

With the absence of the donated eight-hour CalCPA Education Foundation course this year, the chapter pioneered a new chapter meeting format to provide members with similar benefits. We offered a four-times two-hour event in January where we provided four two-hour courses with cutting-edge content, such as IFRS and XBRL. Again, we received very complimentary feedback. The chapter remained committed to the Young and Emerging Professionals initiative as well. In addition to the seminar mentioned above, we hosted two Young and Emerging Professional roundtables where students and young professionals provided valuable input on to how best to serve this audience going forward. And of course, Johanna Sweaney Salt continued her very successful MAP Interest Group meetings.

This is where I stop to take a breath. There were a variety of other activities and volunteer efforts throughout the year that added value to our local members—too many to mention. The one person who worked the hardest and was responsible for much of the success we realized is Monica Thompson, our chapter’s program associate. A very big thank you goes out to her!

The good news for our chapter members is that the majority of the leadership team responsible for the success of the year just concluding is returning this coming year. I encourage you to consider volunteering in a chapter leadership position. It is a very rewarding experience and the leadership skills developed and the relationships gained are invaluable. Again, thank you for the honor and privilege of serving you this year.

Respectfully,
Mark Erickson, CPA

This entry was posted on Friday, May 1st, 2009 at 7:08 am 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.