Young CPA of the Year
One of the big surprises of the Board Meeting occurred during the awards program.  Our own Jerry McMillon was one of two CPAs to win Young CPA of the Year!  Congratulations Jerry!  Way to go!  Jerry couldn’t be at the meeting, so Roger Haynes accepted the award on his behalf, after explaining that he was neither Jerry McMillon nor all that young.(See story in News and Notes below.)

Leadership Development Institute
The TSCPA is offering its new Leadership Development Institute (LDI) to young CPAs your firm would like to train for a future leadership role.  This program will take a limited number of future CPA leaders through a rigorous multi-day training program supplemented by web-casts and conference calls.  The program will be conducted by Succession Institute, founded by Bill Reeb and his partners.  Applications can be downloaded at tscpa.org and are due August 14, 2009.

Vacations and the lady in the Garmin GPS
I hope you are having a great summer and have had an opportunity to take some time off to spend with family and friends.

I took a week off last week to take the family to visit Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks in Wyoming.  My in-laws graciously offered the use of their RV.  I was a little nervous about this.  If you’ve seen the Robin Williams movie “RV”, you would understand.  I had never driven an RV, much less taken one on a 2,000 mile odyssey.  What if I got high centered on some mountain pass?  And how does that holding tank thing work?  I certainly don’t need that exploding in my face.  Perhaps I could talk my son Travis into taking care of that.  That’s what teenagers are for, isn’t it?

Well, now that we’re back, I can say the everything went fine, for the most part.  The worst part of driving the RV was working my way through Denver traffic.  The exit to Estes Park is on the left side of the interstate.  You should know this in advance, or pay closer attention the lady’s voice in the Garmin GPS.  Cutting across fours lanes of traffic in a 30 foot RV pulling a Jeep is not recommended.

As an aside, my wife Kaye liked the Garmin GPS.  She felt is was like having another woman there to tell me how and where to drive.  Takes the pressure off her.

I discovered that driving down a two lane mountain road is much scarier than driving up, and for the first time I prayed for good brake pads. I don’t know how good they were (good enough, obviously), but I can certainly tell you how they smell as your skidding  down a mountain with a 2,000 pound Jeep pushing from behind.

We had a great time, saw the geysers and lots of wildlife.  Didn’t have much luck talking Travis into handling the holding tank connections.  As he said, “That’s what Dads are for, isn’t it?”

Hope your having a great summer!