The Non Elevator Speech

Is shorter really better?

I have to confess that I am looking for work after being laid-off in October. Recently, I have been thinking about how to capture a career that covers almost four decades in an “elevator speech”. Eveything I seem to read on the topic these days suggests that you keep your “pitch” short because you don’t have much time to capture the imagination and attention of the “pitchee” (and yes, I did make that word up). That’s a tough one, especially if your career has some diversity to it. So, after some careful consideration (five or six nano-seconds at least), I have created the non-elevator speech instead. I hope it inspires you to create one of your own and at the very least that you have as much fun reading this as I did crafting it.

I have an unusual background for a CPA and I am at an odd point in my career. I am too young to retire and too experienced for most of the available jobs that I see. I am still motivated to make a contribution though and my passion is solving tough problems and mentoring younger professionals. There is no job description that fits exactly what I can do. But, I know I can help the right organization. Why? Because over the course of my career I have:

Been a payables clerk, payroll timekeeper, budget analyst, property accountant, staff, supervisor and chief internal auditor.

Headed up accounting operations for a $190MM business unit for one company and managed the cost accounting and financial analysis section of a $400MM business unit in another.

Paid invoices, calculated hours worked on time cards, written journal entries, reconciled accounts, produced, audited and explained financial statements.

Tested transactions, done analytical review procedures, written and presented audit reports. Once I even managed to convince the Financial Controls and Analysis section of a major industrial organization to change their accounting policy manual because a procedural requirement was unworkable for the plants on the Texas — Mexico border.

Grown-up as the computer industry did. Progressing from punched cards (I still have a few) to the current interactive technologies. I learned to program in FORTRAN and BASIC and how to use data retrieval languages like Easytrieve and Query to do ad hoc reporting. If Excel had a voice and legs I am confident I could make it sing and dance.

Learned how ERP systems work, how to implement them and get useful information out of them.

Created tools for account managers to use to evaluate the economics of projects, built interactive costing models so product development engineers could estimate costs, produced forecasting tools for CFO’s to use to predict performance. I have actually read parts of the Handbook for Mechanical Engineers in order to better understand the technical aspects of projects under financial review. I can tell you what a torsional vibration damper does and how it works, what goes on in a heat treating process or how to make a corndog on an industrial scale, among other things.

Switched my focus from accounting to operations when the team needed me to become the internal subject matter expert in lean manufacturing and six-sigma. I have done time studies, six sigma performance improvement projects and facilitated over fifty kaizen events.

Spent a lot of time on plant floors with industrial and product engineers. What I have learned is that the natural state for a production environment is chaos and if you don’t control it, that’s what you get. I have come to appreciate the power of the bell curve, upper and lower control limits and the uselessness of trying to explain normal variation inside the process control limits.

Conducted meetings and training sessions with hourly workers on shop floors at all hours of the day and night. Presented annual profit plans to corporate executive staffs and participated in audit committee meetings with the board of directors. In all these endeavors I have always told the audience what they needed to hear. It wasn’t always what they wanted to hear. That produced some uncomfortable moments and I learned how to think on my feet and remain calm under fire.

As you can see, I have done and can do a lot of different things. I hope to have the opportunity to continue to make a contribution. I am sure I can for the right organization.