President’s Message
February 2012
Dear AZ Valley of the Sun Members:
Wow! January was a busy and educational one for our chapter. The Wild West Council CPE training on IT Strategy and IT Security were four hours well spent. I learned a lot from both speakers. On January 24th, Cheryl Brock, Ron Caron, Tom Dopler and I spent the day with the IMA Chair, Dr. Brian McGuire visiting corporations and Grand Canyon University.
We visited ON Semiconductor, Intel, and Shasta Pools, bringing the IMA and CMA messages to their Controllers and accounting staff who had expressed interest in our organization. Dr. McGuire led off with IMA global presence and goals and the rest of us discussed our chapter and how it benefits its members. Ron Caron also provided information on the CMA for those interested.
We had lunch with members of our Student Chapter at Grand Canyon University and then Dr. McGuire spoke to a large Cost Accounting class. I want to thank Dr. Donna DeMilia for making all these arrangements. We gained two new student members as a result of this visit!
Dr. McGuire must have been tired of speaking after this long day, but he continued at our evening technical session. Before he did however, we awarded our Past President, Pam Zanzucchi a Certificate of Appreciation for her leadership and achievement in bringing our chapter in at 6th place nationally in the Stephenson division. There are two divisions for large and small chapters and the Stevenson division represents the large divisions. Quite an achievement Pam!
We also announced the 25 and 50 year certificates to those IMA members who had achieved these years of continuous membership. Unfortunately, they were not able to attend. They were, for 25 years: James Bryant, Kimberly Peek, Otis Perkins, and Robert Sells and for 50 years: Roger Walcott. Congratulations to all!
Our chapter continued to give back to the community with seven members attending VITA training to provide tax preparation help to low income individuals. Our Student Chapter members also presented FDIC training on loans for college and cars to a large group of students at ASU. They did an excellent job and many students stayed after for more information.
Speaking of taxes, February is tax month for our double session technical meeting. Federal tax changes will be presented in the afternoon by Brad Smith along with Elliot Heath and Megan Klingler. State changes will be led again by Krista Howard along with Spencer Evans and Alex Tran. Another opportunity to earn 3 CPE’s on one of our favorite topics!
Looking forward into February, we have our chapter volunteers working with the Special Olympics at the Waste Management Open on Saturday, February 4th and then participating in the American Heart Association Walk on February 25th. If you can’t walk, you can still help with the money counting. Visit the website for more information under our new Events section or contact Laura Mangan at lauralynne@earlthlink.com for more information. Not yet on the website is also acting as cashiers for the AZ Desert Bighorn Sheep Society Auction.
I hope you have visited the website to see the new design. The Homepage is beautiful! As I mentioned, with the new Events section, you can view and sign up for multiple events instead of just the tech session. Registration requires that you create a userid and password but once this is done, you will be able to use it for any event. The PayPal feature is also functional with this new design. There were a couple of bugs with the January roll-in registrations but these are being resolved. If you do have any issues, please contact me immediately at raktimian@q.com and let me know your issue.
Thank you all for your continued support and contributions even with very busy professional and personal commitments. I look forward to seeing you at upcoming events. Have a great tax season!
Respectfully,
Karen Timian, CMA, CPIM
2011-2012 President
IMA AZ Valley of the Sun Chapter
