BYU-Hawaii students said they learned about the importance of balancing their professional and spiritual lives at the Professional Accounting Societies Career Forum, which featured the BYUH Accounting Department’s David Waite, assistant professor, and Elder Ted Stagg, volunteer professor.
The two speakers spoke about two specific career paths available to accountants: Waite spoke about the opportunities in the corporate world working as controllers and as chief financial officers or CFOs, and Stagg pulled from his experience of owning his own public accounting firm and spoke of the opportunities in public accounting.
Both speakers emphasized the importance of the students continuing their education and becoming Certified Public Accountants.
“I’m very proud to be a CPA. I worked hard to be a CPA,” said Stagg. “Being a CPA opens up unbelievable doors for you. Accountants are in great demand and needed all over the world.”
Waite, who has worked at a CFO for several different companies, gave advice to students entering the corporate world. “When you go to work, work. I can’t emphasize how important I think that is.” Waite then told a story of one of his first jobs as a CFO. He reminisced about spending hours looking for a desk. He used the story as a lesson. “If I could do it again, I would have put up a card table and gotten a fold up chair and a laptop and just gone to work. I really regret not doing that.”
Waite also discussed how accountants can be perceived as pesky or uninterested in a business. “We’re not the sexy ones in the business,” he said, “but our job is seeing the entire picture of the company.” He told stories of leaving his office and going into the field to learn what the company was doing. “Knowing the numbers on the financial statements is essential, but you have got to understand the business to make sense of those numbers.”
Held in HGB 135 on April 21, the forum was well attended by accounting and business students. Several students attended the forum to support the two speakers, especially Waite, who they said they feel has left an impression on their academic journey. Both speakers will be leaving BYUH after this semester. The Staggs will be returning in January 2018.
“We were thinking about people that have a good balance between their professional careers and also the spiritual side of what BYUH can offer to the students,” said Daniel Maneha, president of the Professional Accounting Society and accounting junior from Hau’ula. “They are the type of examples we want to show to the students here–to give them someone they can emulate and become like.”
“Brother Waite has taught me to work hard and more importantly to enjoy what you're doing,” said Juliun Perkins, a sophomore from Kailua majoring in business management who attended the forum.
“I went to the forum to support Brother Waite,” said Lama Fesola'I, a senior from New Zealand majoring in accounting. “He's a great teacher and one I feel that cares for students and their futures.”
While both will miss the students and their associations on the campus, the Staggs said the thing they would miss the most are the weekly devotionals.
“I love the devotionals,” said Stagg. “It’s incredible to have an hour in the middle of the week on Tuesday to think about spiritual matters while the rest of the time we’re dealing with accounting matters.”
Both Stagg and Waite said that getting a CPA and working in public accounting were instrumental in finding success in the field. They recommended students work four years with a big accounting firm. Other students were interested in the lessons the two had learned from their professional careers.
“One take away I had is that, you have got to work when you have downtime. Don't waste it. Stagg mentioned that in his downtime, he went to meetings and made contacts with leads and drove his business to success. So be active at work,” said Fesola'I.
The PAS provided a catered dinner afterward for the speakers and students.
“The PAS is not just accounting. We are trying to help the students who join to have the much broader vision of being a professional in the field but also taking with them the attributes that they have gained, both leadership and spiritual qualities,” said Maneha.
Writer: Patrick Campbell