A self-reflective blog to express gratitude for being awarded an FCPA and acknowledges the support from friends, family, and colleagues. Dumb luck, being curious, and a wonderful wife has led me to diverse professional experiences. At the center of it all is the value of an Accounting education.

I found out last week that I am to be awarded an FCPA. For those unfamiliar with what this is, see the Annex below.

1. Thank You for Your Support
2. Impostor Syndrome and Avoiding Hubris
3. Dumb Luck and Opportunity
4. A Meandering Career
   1. Kicking Off at the ‘Foot’
   2. The Middle Space of Opportunity
5. Why Accounting Makes for Good Non-Traditional Accountants
   1. Accountants are System Thinkers
   2. Analytical Skills
   3. Telling the Accounting Story
   4. Telling the Truth and Staying Curious
6. Professional and Personal Interests
   1. Protecting Alberta’s Natural Areas and YEGVille.ca
   2. Supporting the Nonprofit Sector
   3. Education Through Conferences, Webinars, and YouTube
   4. Other Professional Interest
   5. Mentoring and Being the Boss You Want Your Boss to Be
7. Pull Together a Non-Traditional Summary
8. Notes and Further Reading
9. ANNEX – What the F* is a FCPA?

Thank You for Your Support

Thank you to Jeanette S. who nominated me and those who provided letters of support. Your faith in me is humbling and I am grateful for your endorsement.

Most importantly, thank you to my wife Margreet who has put up with me for 35+ years. She has read hundreds of my blogs/articles and is a partner in the truest sense of the word. Thank you, Margo!

Despite this show of support, I am still waiting for the email from CPA Alberta saying, oops, it turns out you are an impostor….

Impostor Syndrome and Avoiding Hubris

I suspect most normal people suffer a little from ‘Impostor Syndrome’: the fear of being exposed as a fraud. The upside of a little Impostor Syndrome is that it prevents excessive hubris. This self-reflection is important. As I look back over my career and personal interests, I can only describe myself as an anomaly when it comes to accountants (more on this in a bit).

This post then is my reflection on how a CPA, not following a traditional career path, can contribute to the profession and society. It is also a reflection on dumb luck, error, personal connections, and marriage.

Dumb Luck and Opportunity

I have been blessed with not only a wonderful wife (thanks again Margreet) but also being born when I was. My career and life coincided with an age of computers, economic and political stability, and readily available resources. The blessings I acknowledge are the circumstances of my life for which I had no control and the ability to take advantage of these circumstances and opportunities.

A Meandering Career

If you were to look at my CV (or LinkedIn profile), the word meandering may come to mind. Healthcare, government, aerospace/defense, international organizations, and a ski-festival are examples. I wish I could say I was fantastically successful at all these roles. At the very least, I believe left each one better than how I found it.

Kicking Off at the ‘Foot’

Dumb luck started with my first accounting job at the Foothills Hospital in Calgary. Over the next 10 years at the ‘Foot’, I was blessed with fantastic bosses, co-workers, and a highly innovative environment. Over the following 20 years, great bosses came thick and fast. I now realize that a good boss is a rare commodity. To have had so many was an honour.

The Middle Space of Opportunity

Part of meandering meant filling in the middle space between more traditional business areas. Returning to my CV, the following are my areas of professional expertise:

Perhaps this is part of the Impostor Syndrome. How can I be an Accounting Fellow when I spent so little time working as a traditional accountant?

Why Accounting Makes for Good Non-Traditional Accountants

A traditional accountant might work in public practice. Their business cards may include titles like Partner, Controller, Auditor, or CFO. Their resume would list skills such as Accounting, Audit, Assurance, Business Valuation, Financial Statements, or Taxation.

Despite having never worked in public practice, or had Controller on my business card, Accounting has been central to my career and personal interests for the following reasons:

Accountants are System Thinkers

While a CPA may have worked their entire career in payroll, they know their efforts are part of a larger collection of activities. Payroll specialists cannot do their job without a human resources department, a chart of accounts, or an organizational hierarchy.

Analytical Skills

Accountants know how to research and analyze problems. Examples include:

• Trouble shooting stuck journals,
• Figuring out how tax changes affect their organization, or
• Supporting computer system upgrades.

Telling the Accounting Story

Accounting is about communications. Insert here your favourite accountant joke [2] but a financial statement tells the story of an organization. What went well, what were the challenges, what the future holds, and past mistakes. Accounting standards provide the story’s structure.

Telling the Truth and Staying Curious

But is the story told by an accountant true, can it be trusted? This is the role of the auditor and professional-ethics writ large. Professional development keeps Accountants curious and informed. While for some it is a chore to ‘get the hours’, for most, it is a joy to learn something new [3].

Systems Thinking, an Analytical focus, Telling Stories, and Striving to be Truthful – the hallmarks of a good accountant, the center of my career (discussed above), as well as my professional and personal interests.

Professional and Personal Interests

For me, the dividing line between Personal and Professional Interests is arbitrary. Organizing a conference on innovation is both professionally rewarding but also fun (with a side of sheer terror thrown in for good measure). I enjoy researching and exploring social and business interests and putting a slightly different spin on them.

Looking back, the following body of work is what I am most proud of. Generally listed in reverse chronological order, they are themes that I might still return to… some day… when new projects/ideas stop coming along…

Protecting Alberta’s Natural Areas and YEGVille.ca

60% of Alberta is Crown (public) land; how best to monitor these diverse and often remote locations to ensure they are available for future generations. This work is done through the Stewards of Alberta’s Protected Areas Association (SAPAA). An annual report on the state of the Natural Areas makes use of my accounting skills by collecting, analyzing, and preparing a credible report.

YEGVille.ca is a passion project started in 2015 that tries to answer the question, where can someone interested in self-propelled activities go within the metro-Edmonton area? There are lots! A work in progress, about 500 sites have been identified – all outside of Edmonton proper. Including these resources and the number could quickly rise towards 1,000 locations. A project to keep me busy for a while.

Supporting the Nonprofit Sector

• IPOOG’g. Can non-profits visualize their organization through a simple diagram that details its Inputs, Processes, Outputs, Outcomes, and Governance? If so, will it help, hinder, or be indifferent to the organization’s ability to plan and execute on its mission?
• Nonprofit Technology. (See: Small Nonprofit Technology). How can technology enable nonprofits? What are the costs to select, implement, operate, and then leave a technology.
• Care and Feeding of Volunteers. (See: Volunteerism). Who in their right mind would give away their Time and Talent without being paid? It turns out that volunteers are paid through Purpose, Affiliation, and Experience. At the same time, the volunteer social contract is a tenuous one destroyed by volunteer burden.

Education Through Conferences, Webinars, and YouTube

Organizing an in-person conference, webinar, or producing a YouTube video is an interesting, exhausting, and fun activity. You get to connect to fascinating people and add to the body of knowledge on the subject. Thank you to the Financial Management Institute, Edmonton Chapter, the Edmonton CPA Community Ambassadors, and SAPAA for these opportunities. FMI and CPA Ambassador topics are listed on the Articles page, SAPAA on their website, and videos on my YEGVille.ca YouTube Channel.

Other Professional Interest

There have been dozens of interesting topics I have explored on my website to a greater or lesser degree. The following are ones that are in various states of completion but not yet published. I plan to get back them… someday… maybe.

• Practical Financial Literacy. (See: Financial Literacy). For more than 20 years I have had an interest in both Financial and Organizational Literacy. The largest problem with Financial Literacy is that it is delivered too late to people who are often too far gone to benefits from the program. Family Financial Literacy centered around ‘Money: A Book About Happiness‘.
• Anti-Fragile Risk Management turns traditional Risk Management on its head. Most of the efforts are spent mitigating risk and creating robust/resilient organizations. Traditional Risk Management is then used to test the efficacy of these efforts. ARM is composed of Seven elements starting with the most conceptual and ending with the most practical.
• COSOPS – An Internal Control Framework for the Public Service. Building on the US COSO framework, internal control features important to governments. Used for both Risk Assessments, it outlines three lines of defense going from the most practical to abstract.

Mentoring and Being the Boss You Want Your Boss to Be

I have been blessed with great bosses, but this cannot be a one-way affair. You should strive to be the boss you would have wanted as a boss. Of the list of my work accomplishments, the last, Mentoring, is the most important to me. Over a 35+ year career I was able to hire close to 50 interns, cooperative education students, and new-Canadians. Many of these individuals have gone on to senior roles. And of course, the accounting lens was applied to this activity.

One of my favourite articles was published in CMA Magazine and recommended a best practice for hiring interns. In a nutshell, have at least two in which the senior one trains the newly hired junior one. After a defined amount of time, kick the senior intern out so the junior can take their place. The key success factor for the process, how many senior interns land jobs as a result of the experience.

Pull Together a Non-Traditional Summary

Profuse apologies if you made it this far and thinking that Frank is self-absorbed. Honestly, I really try to avoid the limelight usually because I am off to the next interesting project. Nevertheless, this Post has allowed me to self-reflect and answer the question, would I have awarded Frank a FCPA?

Probably not, but only because I know the guy… what an Impostor!

Notes and Further Reading

1. Health care leadership in action: Overcoming impostor syndrome.
2. How do you know you are talking to an accountant? He is looking at his shoes.
   How do you know you are talking to an extrovert accountant? He is looking at YOUR shoes.
3. My own view of Professional Development is that it is a public act of good faith. You can read my PD accounting for the past ~10 years here: Professional Development and Good Intentions.

ANNEX – What the F* is a FCPA?

According to CPA Alberta, a FCPA is the following:

Fellow of the Chartered Professional Accountants (FCPA)

• The upper echelon of the CPA profession.
• Natural leaders, capable of bringing people together to reach a goal.
• Significant achievements in all their roles.
• The Fellowship designation is granted to CPAs whose achievements in their careers and the community have earned them distinction and brought honour to the profession.