Looking Back, Looking Forward

By Gayle M. Whittemore, CPA

I don’t know about you, but my family and I had a blast at our chapter’s officer installation held in May at the Santa Monica Pier. Seriously, we’re CPAs, and when was the last time we had to yell over the roar of a roller coaster to be heard? For the 210 of us who had mimosas and brunch as the Pacific Ocean sparkled and the amusement rides twirled, it was a wonderful time to come together and celebrate the many achievements to which CalCPA can lay claim.

For those of you who missed the day, we celebrated Jenny Bolsky’s legacy of success, David Swartz’s accomplishments and lifetime community service achievement, Steven Valdes’ contributions to the profession and Carolyn Fox’s 40 years of continuous membership. Each of these amazing people have added immensely to our profession, and each spoke from the heart about their commitment to public service and mentoring those who are younger than themselves.

Maybe it’s the fact that December will mark my half century on this planet, but what struck me during the event were the achievements of our young and emerging professionals and the enthusiasm of our scholarship recipients. As I said during my comments, our purpose is to advocate on behalf of our membership, enhance the reputation of our profession and attract the best and the brightest. As we handed out the awards, I felt strongly that our new crop of emerging CPAs perfectly fit that bill. All of our recipients have distinguished themselves academically and have demonstrated a heartfelt desire to work to their potential and further our field’s reputation as being trusted advisers and fair and objective professionals. In all honesty, watching them, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, reminded me of my early days, which couldn’t have happened without the pioneers like Carolyn Fox.

I have to be honest, I don’t know Carolyn well, but when I started my career at Arthur Young in 1985, there was not an oversupply of accomplished women who were willing to hold the proverbial flashlight as we made our way through the corporate darkness. In fact, clad in my Brooks Brothers blue suit (skirt, of course) and silk rose tie, I was ready to seize whatever opportunities my managers threw at me, and, on the outside chance a partner ever stopped by my cubicle, recite tax code to amaze and dazzle him. Remember, we were still mastering Lotus 1-2-3 back then, and the dawn of computing knowledge had not yet broken. What I distinctly remember, though, was how homogenous our profession was. Fast-forward a quarter of a century, and we are wonderfully diverse, engaging and inclusive.

It is on that note that I want to thank all of our members who have given so much of their time and expertise to “raise our young” (did I mention that my 10- and 13-year-olds rode the Dragon 18 times?). We are fortunate to enjoy an exceptional reputation as a profession of integrity and expertise, and I believe that our collective future rests on the shoulders of our next generation. I am committing to participating in more YEP events and ask that you do as well. We all have so much to learn from each other.

On that note, your chapter board is working hard to establish its goals for fiscal year 2010–11. These goals will be tied to specific initiatives that we will champion and ask you to support. In the next few months, I will present to you these initiatives, our goals and the strategic connection to advocate on behalf of our membership, enhance the reputation of our profession and attract the best and the brightest. So stay tuned. I look forward to seeing you at our summer networking events!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 9:41 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.