CPA of Ohio: Kortni Spates

What do you like to do in your free time?  

Line dancing every Thursday is something that I like to do and that I take seriously. I consider it a sport because it gets very in-depth with the different dances. I also like to cook and bake. I like to go on TikTok and find new recipes to try. I also like to do puzzles. I'm definitely a puzzle person and I can do a puzzle for hours. I like difficult ones that might take you days to do.  

Who is someone that inspires you?  

For a long time, it was my mom. Everything that she stood for and who she is, I said I wanted to be like her. Now that I am an adult, the level of how I view her is different because while she's still my mom, we're also peers because now we have a different relationship. She doesn't just talk to me like I'm her daughter. She doesn't tell me what to do. The dynamic of our relationship is different now. A lot of times she calls me for help because she was in nonprofit accounting for a long time and then right before COVID, she decided to start her own public firm. She's been a workaholic and she's been doing a great job, but she would ask me questions all the time. She needed help because public accounting was new to her. At that point, I was more experienced than her, even though I was still kind of new myself. Even today, she still calls. It's really cool now to just be able to know my mom on a different level. Eventually of course at some point I'll probably join her because we're building a family accounting firm.