I have two family members that have helped guide me: my father and my grandfather.
Dad was a chemist. He had had to support his family upon the death of his father and go to school to get a degree while he held down a full-time job. Dad did both in the middle of the Depression. I don’t know how he did it, because his job was at the Ford Rouge plant. We both worked in the Dearborn Iron Foundry, where even in the winter the temperature never went below 100° F. Dad graduated and got a job as a chemist at Agrico, a chemical company, in Detroit. He encouraged me strongly to go to college.
Grandpa White was a skilled tradesman who got a full apprenticeship at the Frisco railway locomotive works in Springfield, MO. This served him well in life and gave him real success. When he lost his job at the railway shops, he used his last rail pass to move his wife, my mother, and her sister up to Detroit, a good town for a working man. He demonstrated an enormous capacity for change, as well as resilience. He changed jobs a lot but was on welfare only once, for three days during the Depression. He got me into a summer job at the Rouge (Dearborn Iron Foundry) and taught me that those without college degrees can still contribute. He was active long after retirement and thus was well ahead of his time. Both he and my father had extraordinary capacities for hard work.
I backed into my career. I was working on my PhD in Economics and needed money to finish my dissertation. My PhD advisor suggested accounting since “it paid well, was easy, and accountants never worked past 5 PM.” So I went out and got hired with no background in accounting. It was a tough job, learning “on the fly.” However, within two years of entering the profession I qualified to sit for the Certified Professional Accountant (CPA) exam. This required that I take 32 hours of accounting classes while holding down a full-time job. My memory of Dad doing the same thing provided the example for that. I passed the exam after two attempts and started work in local CPA firms, doing basic bookkeeping, accounting and tax preparation, but I became bored.
I then got a job at Zantop Airlines as their first tax manager. Zantop was one of the first air freight companies, and I got my first experience working for a company with more than $100 million of gross receipts. This gave me experience not only in state and local taxation, but experience in negotiations with senior department of revenue personnel. I got ample experience with tax audits and appeals and, best of all, I got exposure to some of the best professionals in the state and local tax (“SALT”) field. I was mentored by Paul Frankel, Pat Van Tiflin, Michele Halloran, and other fine professionals. They taught me how to write good briefs, how to frame appeals strategy and, above all, how to be a fine professional. It was a magnificent experience, and I went on to General Motors, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and other large firms, where I put that experience to good use. The tax work, particularly the planning and appeals, requires deep analysis, thorough legal research, as well as a comprehensive understanding of how a taxpayer actually operates a business. As part of my tax work at Zantop, I got well over 100 hours riding in the jump seat just behind the pilot (usually at 2 AM) so that I could travel to various locations without incurring commercial plane ticket costs. The knowledge I acquired from these rides (and conversations with the crews) gave me a thorough understanding of the company’s operations, which enabled me to save them several million dollars in taxes. I also learned considerable details about manufacturing methods when I worked in that industry. As part of this, I got to meet some very good non-finance professionals and used the operations knowledge I gained from them to find new ways of minimizing taxes.
I was also able to mentor several persons who went on to have very good careers. In one case, a woman who worked as a clerk for me is now the accounting manager of a larger, locally owned business.
This knowledge actually prepared me for my new profession—small-business consultant. Several of my former employers went bankrupt in the economic fallout from 2001 on, so the question became what sort of new career I would pursue.
I enjoy economic and financial analysis, as well as working with people. I enjoy learning about new technologies. I also bring a lot of tax experience to the table. I wanted to use these skills in another area. I learned about entrepreneurship by attending New Enterprise Forum (NEF) meetings, where I met a number of entrepreneurs and those just starting out. Ann Arbor is especially fortunate to have many resources. In this new profession, I have moved beyond tax and financial considerations to include business planning, marketing, human resources, intellectual property, and other issues. In short, I have to be able to handle many new situations.
I believe that the best opportunities today lie in new business. Entrepreneurs are much more open to new ways of doing things. Even where the exit strategy involves selling the business to a larger firm, I believe that the time spent building the business is very worthwhile. New business consultants will be involved in more areas, must stretch their minds, and will make a greater contribution to the economy than by staying with the larger, more rigid corporations. Big corporations will always be there, but I think that we’ve seen that they do not provide any more security than small business. Also, with their rigid bureaucracy, they do not offer good career paths. Moreover, in terms of your personal impact on the world, it is far easier to make a tangible difference in a $25-million business with, say, just 40 employees.
There are many resources for entrepreneurs in the Ann Arbor area. Two of them are NEF and Ann Arbor SPARK. I strongly recommend membership in NEF for anyone wishing to consider entrepreneurship as a career path. You will meet large numbers of people who are either successful entrepreneurs or on the path to becoming one. They are the best source for entrepreneurial knowledge. They are potential mentors and/or business partners. You can get priceless information on all aspects of starting a business, as well as operating one, from them. Ann Arbor SPARK is also an excellent source of information and provides great networking opportunities. I took a course for career changers called Shifting Gears that helps prepare us for the entrepreneurial life. I’m currently the CFO (chief financial officer) of an alternative energy company, Off Grid LLC.
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