President's Message
June 30, 2009
By Joelyn Carr-Fingerle, CPA
 To endeavor. To try. To strive. To seek. To work hard and do our best to do what is best. The dictionary defines the verb “to endeavor” as a serious and sincere or earnest attempt to achieve something. As a noun, an endeavor is an enterprise or directed activity.
Both definitions can apply to us as CPAs. We try daily to do our best for our clients, our firms and our families. We have high standards and try to set a great example for others. Being a CPA is an honorable profession. We often have difficult situations presented to us that we must solve or work our way through. And we assist our clients to endeavor to make the best choices as well. When I was in school I never knew how much my psychology minor would come in handy as I work through the “financial psychology” part of the 1040 interviews each tax season! We all have those situations where we are the sounding board/listening post for clients as they assess their financial and family dynamic situations. We endeavor to help them as best we can—both individuals and businesses.
At our July chapter meeting, we will honor the endeavors of our chapter’s past presidents and 40-year members. Before dinner we will host a new-member orientation so that all the new members embarking on their accounting careers can learn more about the endeavors of our chapter and some of our members. The new-member orientation is targeted to members who have joined since last December, when we held the last orientation, but everyone is welcome. If you are a new member and don’t receive a call or e-mail, please register online (so we have the proper head count). All are welcome!
At our July meeting we also will celebrate our chapter’s 60th birthday with chapter stories and birthday cake at dinner, so if you want to find out a little more about our local organization, please attend! You can register online. If you have a story for us, please respond to this blog or to me and Valerie Haynes Perry will get back to you. She is compiling the stories for us and will gladly accept all information that is offered.
At July’s meeting, CalCPA Chair Andrea Cope will join us for her official chapter visit. She will update us on CalCPA, talk about the organization’s first 100 years and look toward the next 100 years. CalCPA is celebrating its 100 years of endeavors on behalf of the CPA profession in California.
2Endeavor? It’s the name of the band that played at the installation dinner this year (see photos), with our chapter treasurer, AJ Major, as drummer. 2Endeavor is a wonderful rock ’n’ roll band. If you missed them, please do try to catch up with them at another event. What a great name and inspiration to us all! Let us all endeavor to do our very best, always.
Hope to see many of you at our chapter events, and I’d love to hear how your endeavors are being planned and progressing!
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Chapter News
Mark your calendar for Tuesday, Sept. 29 for our biggest networking event of the year—ABC Night. The event provides attorneys, bankers, CPAs and other financial professionals with the opportunity to see old friends and make new ones. Approximately 250 guests attended last year’s event, and all signs are pointing to a bigger event this year, so plan to be there. Look for more details in next month’s Bulletin.
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East Bay Chapter members are invited to tighten their spikes and start practicing their swing for the San Francisco Chapter’s Seventh Annual Golf Tournament scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 22 at Harding Park—this time under special conditions. In October many of the world’s top golfers will be at Harding for the international President’s Cup competition, so the golf course will be in wonderful condition. Because of this event, however, we’re limited to 72 players.
If you would like to be one of them, don’t wait. Register today.
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This year marks the chapter’s 60th and CalCPA’s 100th anniversaries! Join us as we celebrate these milestones and honor our past presidents, 40-year members and new members. Our special guest speaker will be CalCPA Chair Andrea Cope.
Date: Tuesday, July 21
Time: 6–8:30 p.m.
Register online.
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Mary M. Geong started her professional career teaching history and home economics in middle school, but changed course in the 1970s.
“Baby boomers were too busy with their careers to start families, schools were closed due to low enrollment and I was laid off due to low seniority,” she says. “I decided to find a job with a higher level of security. Since I was good with numbers, I went back to school to study accounting. I figured all companies need accountants, and they still do.”
Geong has a bachelor’s degree in history and a teaching credential from San Francisco State University. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting, along with an MBA and master’s degree in taxation, from Golden Gate University. She is a senior program specialist for the Franchise Tax Board.
“The irony is that I prefer reading a romance book over a tax book any day,” she says.
Geong has worked in the FTB’s Oakland and San Francisco offices for 15 years. “There’s never a dull moment with changing tax issues, tax shelters, and both cooperative and difficult taxpayers or tax representatives,” says Geong. “I have worked in various departments, including personal income tax, partnerships, multistate corporations, etc. I guess once a teacher, always a teacher, because now I also train the new auditors in the Oakland office.”
Geong is on the Speaker Bureau representing the FTB at tax practitioner meetings, small-business seminars and—because she speaks fluent Cantonese and some Mandarin—Chinese TV and radio stations. She has served as an East Bay Chapter board member and board member for East Bay Chapter of Enrolled Agents, East Bay Chapter of Goodwill, ASCEND, Oakland Rotary Club No. 3, Piedmont Asian American Club and Sequoyah Heights Homeowner Association.
Outside of her professional accomplishments, Geong relates that her claim to fame was buying four raffle tickets at $50 a pop for the Oakland Rotary Scholarship fund-raiser and winning a baby Mercedes-Benz valued at $40,000. “I received a 1099MISC, paid the income taxes, car registration and sales taxes, which in my mind, was still a bargain!”
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By Michele Day, Chair, Financial Literacy Committee
Interested in helping others? Then the chapter’s Financial Literacy Committee may be for you. Our role is to discover opportunities in our communities where CalCPA can offer financial literacy workshops, which can be customized to any group.
If you’re interested in being a committee member and helping to develop and implement our plan for the year, contact me via e-mail or phone at (925) 299-0121.
We’ll set up an informational meeting in the near future. If you’re not sure if you want to participate on the committee but know of a group that may benefit from these programs, please contact me. Thanks!
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CalCPA News
Please take three minutes to update your personal profile on our website and indicate your preferred fields of interest. This will allow us to target your meeting announcements so you receive only those of most interest to you. (No more tax updates for auditors—unless you request it).
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Looking for information on what CalCPA events you’ve registered for or a listing of all CPE taken from CalCPA or the Education Foundation? Look no further than the Manage My Account function of CalCPA’s website.
Once you log in to the website with your username and password, the Manage My Account function lets you update your personal and professional profile and provides access to Education Foundation products and course discounts.
Forget your username and password? No worries. Simply visit the Login Recovery webpage, enter your e-mail address and your username and password will be e-mailed to you.
Access Manage My Account today.
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You can post your résumé—for FREE—on CalCPA’s online classified page. Get in front of local employers looking to hire CPA professionals—post your résumé today.
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