Michael Blackburn

Michael D. Blackburn, J.D., CPA is a shareholder in the Salt Lake City law firm of Blackburn & Stoll, LC where his practice focuses on tax planning, tax litigation, estate planning and general corporate work.

Mr. Blackburn served as president of the Utah Association of CPAs (“UACPA”) in 1999-2000, after having served as chairman of numerous UACPA committees and as a member of its Board of Directors for nine years. He serves as a current member of the Utah State Board of Accountancy. Mr. Blackburn served for five years as a Member of Counsel of the AICPA and for two years on the joint AICPA/NASBA Task Force on the Uniform Accountancy Act. He was selected as Utah’s Outstanding CPA in 1997 and was awarded the UACPA’s Distinguished Service Award in 2000.

Mr. Blackburn is a frequent instructor who has taught more than 700 courses spread over more than 140 cities in 43 states during the last 15 years. He is a two-time winner of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Outstanding Instructor Award, and various other teaching awards. He is a part-time faculty member at the University of Utah where he teaches courses on individual income taxation, tax strategies and tax controversy resolution. Mr. Blackburn has authored two books on estate and financial planning, has drafted several pieces of legislation, and has written numerous published articles and papers on a variety of legal and tax topics.

Howard Bookbinder

Howard J. Bookbinder, CPA - a resident of Glen Rock, New Jersey, is a Certified Public Accountant practicing in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. He is a contributing author for the Bergen Record’s Tax Mailbag column, and has appeared on the Cable TV program of the same name. He is the author of “Write-up Services for Small Businesses”, a book published by the AICPA.

Howard is a former instructor of accounting and taxation at Rutgers University, and frequently lectures on Federal Tax Updates, Payroll Tax Issues, Ethics, and Circular 230. Howard has addressed many professional, civic and community groups in New Jersey, Ohio, New York, Alabama and Georgia, and several other States, including the American Society of Women Accountants, Mended Hearts, Bergen County Bar Association, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, AARP, The Telephone Pioneers, and NCCPAP. He has also lectured to firms on an in-house basis in the area of professional ethics and taxation. He is a frequent lecturer at many tax seminars sponsored by the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants, AICPA, Kean University, Rowan University, and the Internal Revenue Service.

 Howard was the chairman of the Cooperation with the Internal Revenue Service for four years and is a current member of the New Jersey State Tax Committee. He has been involved with the Internal Revenue Service Symposiums for IRS employees and tax practitioners for the past several years. He maintains close contact with the Internal Revenue Service at the Brookhaven, Philadelphia and Richmond Va. Campuses, as well as at the National level in Washington DC.  Howard was also recently appointed Trustee of the New Jersey Society Education Foundation, and a member of the Professional Conduct Committee. He is a past president of the Bergen Chapter of the New Jersey Society of CPA’s, and a past trustee of the New Jersey State Society of CPA’s. He was also the recipient of the 2003 Service Award for his involvement in furthering the profession. Howard was appointed to the NJ-Israel Commission by Former Governor McGreevey, and reappointed by Governor Corzine.

Howard is a graduate of Pace University and has attended the American Institute of Banking.

Michael Brand, CPA

Michael has been involved in various aspects of public accounting with an emphasis in accounting and auditing services.  His experience involves audits of various for profit, not-for-profit and governmental entities.  Additionally, he conducts peer reviews.  He currently serves on the Alabama Society of CPA’s Peer Review Committee and serves on the AICPA’s Joint Trial Board, Quality Control Standards Task Force and was a prior member of the AICPA’s Peer Review Board.

John Daly

John L. Daly, MBA, CPA, CMA, CPIM - is a Chelsea, Michigan based management consultant specializing in pricing strategy, strategic planning, and business turnarounds. He has taught continuing professional education seminars since 1995. Earlier in his career, Mr. Daly was Chief Financial Officer for a medium-sized Tier 1 automotive parts supplier. He has also been CFO for a large restaurant chain and COO for a manufacturer of window treatments. He began his career with five years working for the management consulting divisions of two large accounting firms. Mr. Daly is the author of Pricing for Profitability: Activity-Based Pricing for Competitive Advantage published by John C. Wiley & Sons, New York.

Lynda Dennis
2007 AICPA Outstanding Discussion Leader

Lynda M. Dennis, CPA, CGFO received her under graduate degree in accounting and finance from the University of West Florida, her Masters in Public Administration and her PhD in Public Affairs from the University of Central Florida.  She is a Florida CPA as well as a Florida Certified Government Finance Officer. Lynda is on the faculty of the Dixon School of Accounting at the University of Central Florida and a discussion leader for the AICPA.  Her recent government experience was as the finance director for the City of Maitland, Florida.  Prior to joining the City of Maitland in May 2000, she was the Assistant to the Chief Financial Officer-Special Projects for the City of Orlando.

Before joining the City of Orlando, Lynda was the Chief Financial Officer for the Central Florida YMCA.  Prior to that, she served as the Director of Finance and Administrative Services for the City of Oviedo, Florida for five years.  Her experience includes working as an auditor for local and Big 4 firms with an emphasis in the insurance, government and not-for-profit sectors.  Lynda also worked as the Special Projects Manager for the Dallas County Community College District and as a grader of CPA exams for the AICPA.

Randy Dummer

Randy Dummer, CPA is a Partner with Virchow, Krause & Company. He is the firm wide leader for the employee benefits plan audit practice at VK. Randy has extensive experience with audits of employee benefit plans, not-for-profit organizations, and commercial businesses. He has been with the firm since 1987 and also has significant experience with reviews and compilations of financial statements as well as tax planning and compliance services for closely-held businesses.

Randy instructs seminars for AICPA throughout the country in accounting and auditing topics.

Will Fleenor 

William C. Fleenor, CPA.CITP, PH.D. - is currently the CFO of K2 Enterprises. He has conducted seminars for more than 40 State CPA Societies and has spoken at numerous accounting technology conferences, including speaking at the AICPA Information Technology Conference for the past 14 years as well as doing training for other organizations such as the FBI. Will is a past Chairman of the AICPA Information Technology Conference in addition to being past chairman of other conferences and professional committees. Will is a co-author of the Practitioners Publishing Company’s Guide to Installing Microcomputer Accounting Systems and has had numerous articles published in professional journals including the Journal of Accountancy, the CPA Journal, and others.

Mike Gordon

Michael A. Gordon, CPA is President of his own CPA practice in Coos Bay, which he started in 1990. With a staff of 8, the firm specializes in tax and consulting, mainly for business owners.

Mike has taught accounting, marketing and management classes for Linfield College and the local Community College in Coos Bay. He has also taught numerous tax seminars for tax professionals all over Oregon for the past 15 years. His subjects have included tax planning, inventory management, entity choices, tax updates, corporate tax issues, negotiating skills, lease analysis, personnel management, pricing of professional services, and more.

Albert Grasso

Albert L. Grasso, LL.M., J.D. is presently counsel to and former President of the law firm of Chuhak & Tecson, P.C. in Chicago.  His practice is concentrated in tax and benefit planning for businesses (including tax-exempt organizations) and individuals.  He previously headed the Tax and co-chaired the ERISA practices of the firm.  Mr. Grasso was formerly an Assistant Professor at the Walter E. Heller College of Business Administration of Roosevelt University in Chicago.  He taught college and graduate level courses on employee benefits and federal income, estate and gift taxes for individuals, partnerships and corporations.

A member of the American, the Illinois State, Chicago, and District of Columbia Bar Associations, Mr. Grasso is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the United States Tax Court, and state and federal courts in Illinois and the District of Columbia.

Vern Hoven

Vernon Hoven’s dynamic presentations, books and articles combine the real-life experience of a practicing CPA and a licensed real estate broker with essential down-to-earth tax materials. He is the author of The Real Estate Investor’s Tax Guide: What Every Investor Needs to Know to Maximize Profits and Real Estate and Taxes! What Every Agent Should Know, and has written articles on taxation for numerous national publications.

Vern is a nationally recognized tax lecturer (averaging 100 days a year for CPAs, tax practitioners and REALTORS^® throughout the United States ) and has a Master’s Degree in Taxation from the University of Denver's School of Law (1985). Vern’s hallmark teaching style blends key information with a strong dose of humor and a high-tech presentation. Numerous state CPA Societies have named Vern their “Tax Instructor of the Year” and, during tax season, he is a favorite for interviews on radio (a regular on Real Estate Today), on television, and in newspapers. Additionally, Vern’s speaking skills earned him the coveted Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation from the National Speakers Association (one of 430 CSPs out of 3,730 NSA members as of 2006").

Vern has served on many national boards, including the National Association of REALTORS^® Legislative Committee and the Federal Tax Subcommittee. He also served for two years as National Secretary and three years as National Director-at-Large for the National Real Estate Educators Association.

Alisa Hunt

Alisa L. Hunt, CPA, is the president of Day 2 Day Business, Inc. a firm set up to assist clients with understanding financial information. After 15 years of practice in accounting where she discovered that a major problem was the communication of financial data and now she assists those in the financial world with communication of financial information to others. She has been teaching on the communication of financial information for the last several years and has spoken throughout the United States, in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Bob Jennings

Bob Jennings CPA, CFP, CITP is a nationally renowned speaker, presenting continuing education classes to over 100,000 tax professionals over the last 10 years all over the world. Awarded the Speaker of the Year Award in 2006, Bob is also a prolific author and has published over 60 professional articles in such magazines as The Journal of Accountancy and The Practical Accountant, as well as annually authoring several tax, accounting and technology seminar manuals. Bob is a very actively practicing partner in the firm he founded in Indiana over 20 years ago, and appeared on over 20 radio and TV shows in 2006, as well as being quoted in The Family Circle and Bloomburg’s Boomer Report.

Rebecca Lee

Rebecca Lee was a principal organizer of Brooke, Freeman & Lee, Birmingham, Alabama, in 1982. As the Firm's audit partner, she is responsible for the Firm's audit practice and serves as a quality control reviewer for other firms.

She has served on numerous AICPA and state society committees including the AICPA Management Consulting Service Professional Practice Subcommittee and Small Business Consulting Practices Subcommittee and is a past member of the Institute's MAS Executive Committee and Personal Financial Planning Executive Committee. She has chaired both the Management Advisory Committee and the Personal Financial Planning Committee of the Alabama Society of CPAs. She currently serves on the South Carolina Association of CPAs' Continuing Professional Education Committee.

She holds a BS degree in Accounting from Jacksonville State University along with a Masters Degree in Accounting from Birmingham Southern College.

Ms. Lee is a discussion leader for all staff level audit training programs as well as, other technical courses. She is a frequent speaker at CPA conferences, and has lectured extensively in the area of management advisory services at professional meetings and seminars for state societies and the American Institute of CPAs. Ms. Lee has served as professor of management accounting in the graduate studies (Master in Public and Private Management) program at Birmingham-Southern College.

She is a member of the Alabama Society of CPAs, the South Carolina Association of CPAs and the AICPA.

Laura Lindal, CPA

Ms. Lindal is the chairperson of the Washington Society of Certified Public Accountants’ Auditing and Accounting Review Services Committee.  She is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and is licensed in the states of California and Washington; approval is pending in the state of Alaska.

Michael Mares

Michael E. Mares, CPA/ABV, JD - is the senior tax member at the certified public accounting and consulting firm of PKF Witt Mares, P.L.C. Mike has been named an AICPA "Outstanding Discussion Leader" three times. He has also been named five times as one of the “100 most influential accountants in the U.S.” and has been named a Virginia “Super CPA” three times. He is a member of the AICPA Professional Ethics Executive Committee and the AICPA Strategic Planning Committee. He also is a past Vice-Chair of the IRS Commissioner’s Advisory Council, a past member of the AICPA Board of Directors and past Chair of the AICPA’s Tax Division Executive Committee, which represents over 350,000 CPAs in tax matters. In 1998, Mike was named the Virginia Society of CPAs “Outstanding Member”.

A licensed attorney in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Mike is a member of the American Bar and Virginia Bar Associations. His lecture topics include tax law updates, estate planning, corporate reorganization, management of volunteers, deriving cash flow information from tax returns, handling the media and tax planning.

Mike has co-authored Limited Liability Companies, Guide to Dealing with the IRS, IRS Practice and Procedures, Practitioner’s 1065 Deskbook, and Individual Case Studies in Tax Planning published by Practitioners Publishing Company and used by CPAs nationwide.

His articles appear regularly in Virginia trade journals, and he has been interviewed on MSNBC, CNBC’s Power Lunch and Court TV’s Prime Time Justice on tax matters.

Mike earned his Bachelor of Science degree with distinction at the University of Virginia. He completed his law studies, earning a Juris Doctorate, at the Marshall Wythe School of Law at William & Mary.

James Myers

Jim Myers is Chief Administrative Officer of Rodefer Moss & Co, PLLC in Knoxville, Tennessee. The firm has six other offices in Kingsport, Greeneville, and Brentwood, Tennessee, as well as Louisville, Kentucky, New Albany and Corydon, Indiana.

 From 2004 to the end of 2007, Jim was Senior Vice President and Accounting Manager of the Small Business Lending Division of Community South Bank. The division specializes in Small Business Administration (SBA) guaranteed lending.

Myers is a member of the AICPA, the Tennessee Society of CPAs (TSCPA) and several other local and regional organizations. He currently serves as an at-large member of the Board of TSCPA, and has also served as chairman of the Professional Ethics and the Technology committees and is a past state officer. He has been a speaker for continuing education courses for both TSCPA and the AICPA for several years and has been named an Outstanding Instructor for AICPA courses.

Roxanne Ostlund, CPA

Roxanne has received a National Writing Award and has had articles published in the National Public Accountant, Wyoming Sagebrush CPA, various Newspapers and Education Journals. She is the author of several self-study courses and has received the Governor's Award for Excellence.

Mark J. Patrick

Mark built an active practice in Hubbard, Ohio, where he and his staff serve the tax planning and compliance needs of several hundred individuals and owner managed businesses. He has built on 15 years of experience to develop expertise in dealing with IRS audits and collection activity. He is a strong proponent of “face-to-face” involvement with his clients in order to provide pro-active planning and to take advantage of new developments in the tax law that affect clients.

Mark uses his practical experience and academic work on a Masters in Taxation at Duquesne University to teach young accountants important technical tax concepts in practical and easy to understand CPE programs. He presents Mares Nichols CPE Inc.’s Tax Staff Training programs with great enthusiasm for the tax law and the profession of public accounting.

Mark is a member of the American Institute of CPAs and The Ohio Society of CPAs.

Larry Perry

Ron Roberson

Ron began his accounting career in the early 1980s with the international accounting firm Deloitte Haskins and Sells. Since 1986, he has owned a CPA firm located in the rural California community of Twain Harte, near Yosemite National Park. Ron is a very active CPA, and draws extensively from his practice to provide practical, real-world examples and solutions for seminar attendees, making complex tax topics easily understandable.

Jonathan Robinson

Jonathan Robinson is an Associate with Frank Sanitate Associates. He is a psychotherapist, author, and professional speaker from Santa Barbara, California. Jonathan has reached over a million people around the world with his practical methods, and his work has been translated into 47 languages. Mr. Robinson has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey and other TV talk shows, CNN, and CNBC. Among his books are: Shortcuts to Bliss, Instant Insight: 200 Ways to Create the Life You Really Want and Communication Miracles for Couples. His specialty is teaching people simple techniques that can have a profound impact on the quality of their life. He has an M.A. and an M.F.C.C.

Susan Smith

Susan Smith, CPA, manages her own firm specializing in tax planning for individuals and business owners. Smith spent 14 years as a Senior Manager in the tax departments of Price Waterhouse and Peat Marwick (the predecessor of KPMG). While at Price Waterhouse, she also held the national specialist designation for the real estate and partnership specialized practice units. While at Peat Marwick, Smith lead the real estate and tax practices locally.

Smith is a frequent speaker at tax conferences and has been an associate adjunct professor at Widener University in the master’s in taxation program. Her ratings have consistently exceeded 4.5 on a scale of 5.0. With regard to her education, she earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree, with an accounting concentration, in 1978.

Thomas Snell

Thomas V. Snell, CPA - has more then twenty years of professional experience as a financial accounting and auditing consultant. He is a professional educator with extensive local firm background. Tom has previously been named Outstanding Discussion Leader by both the Nevada and California Societies of CPAs. Tom has served as a member of the California Accounting Principles and Auditing Standards Committee.

Teresa Thamer

Terrie is a Past National President of American Woman’s Society of CPAs, and Past Present of the Florida Association of Accounting Educators and  the President of the Georgia Association of Accounting Educators. She is a past president of the Northeast Georgia Chapter of the Georgia Society of CPAs and serves on several committees with the Society. She holds an active CPA license in both Florida and Georgia as well as the Certified Fraud Examiner designation.

Jim Woy

James E. Woy, CPA is an audit partner with Anderson ZurMuehlen & Co., P.C. and has over 27 years of public accounting experience.  His expertise areas include nonprofit tax and auditing, pension plan audits and construction.  He is Past President of the Montana Society of CPAs, serves as a technical reviewer for the MSCPA Peer Review Committee.  He has served as a member of the AICPA’s Technical Issues Committee. 

James is an adjunct instructor at Montana Tech of the University of Montana.  He is also a frequent instructor for the Montana Society of CPAs.

Gary Zeune

Using 35 years of experience in auditing, corporate finance, and investment banking, Gary D. Zeune, CPA, provides CPAs, attorneys and executives with hands-on experience in fraud and corporate strategy performance improvement. Zeune is a nationally recognized speaker on fraud and performance. More than 20,000 professionals have attended his classes since 1975. His clients include FBI, US Attorney, bar and CPA associations, international accounting firms, Institute of Internal Auditors, and hospitals and health care companies among others.

Prior to forming his consulting practice in 1986, Mr. Zeune was an Assistant Vice President of Corporate Finance at The Ohio Company, a Columbus, Ohio investment banking firm. He also spent more than five years in Treasury and Finance at Wendy's International, where he was responsible for mergers and acquisitions, financial and SEC reporting, and corporate finance. He was on the audit staff of Ernst & Ernst from 1973 to 1977; and taught accounting at Ohio University from 1970 to 1973, where he received his bachelors in mathematics and masters in accounting, with honors.

Edward K. Zollars, CPA

Ed has been professionally involved with both tax and technology issues, combing the two disciplines in starting the first tax podcast (Ed Zollars Tax Update, produced weekly dealing with current tax issues.  He has been a member of AICPA Tax Division Committees dealing with tax and technology issues, and was the Tax Section’s representative on three occasions to the AICPA’s Top Ten Technologies project.  Ed is also a member of the Phoenix Tax Workshop’s Advisory Committee, and currently serves on the Tax Legislation Liaison Committee for the Arizona Society of CPAs.

He has spoken regularly on tax and technology topics since 1996, speaking before conferences sponsored by the AICPA and a number of state society of CPAs.