“My story stems from music. I grew up playing the piano and, ultimately, I remember my parents taking me to an Ohio State football game really early on. And I've always loved Buckeye football, but I loved watching the marching band. So I had kind of this pipe dream to try out for the Ohio State marching band and I really wanted to dot the ‘i’ in Script Ohio. So, while I grew up playing piano, it ultimately took me to saxophone, and then I played percussion for a little bit, but I ended up switching instruments to sousaphone, or tuba, in high school with the aspiration of trying out for the Ohio State band. That's why I chose Ohio State: I wanted to be in the marching band and I wanted to dot the ‘i.’
“So I went to Ohio State, tried out for the band, made the band, was in the band at Ohio State, did dot the ‘i,’ but when I got to Ohio State, I had no idea career-wise what I wanted to do. My parents were both teachers and, as much as I love that profession and I know they loved what they did, I definitely did not think that was for me. So, while I didn't know much about business, I thought, ‘Okay, business is probably where I might have a career.’ I loved interacting with people. I loved math. Math kind of came naturally to me, particularly algebra. And, while I didn't realize it at the time, when I started taking accounting classes, just as part of my core curriculum at Ohio State, accounting is very much like algebra in many ways, like debits equal credits and it's like everything is in balance. So I kept taking accounting classes, and, before I knew it, I was probably five accounting classes in and then it was like, ‘Wow, this isn't so bad.’ That's when I started learning more about the opportunities in the profession and public accounting and corporate accounting. I really quickly learned that accounting was the best major for any business opportunity going forward because an accountant can work in finance, they can work in HR, they can work in marketing— they can work in every element of business, but other majors can't do the same with accounting and finance. Accountants really could have a wide breadth of potential career paths and that really appealed to me. Fast forward to my junior year of college, the thing that we ultimately kind of learned through the accounting curriculum at Ohio State was to go through an internship. The school really helped facilitate internships for us. I did an internship with KPMG and ultimately started full-time with KPMG back in 2000. So, I did my internship in 1999 and started with the firm in 2000 and have stayed ever since.”