August 2011

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

FALL 2011

Greetings to Members of the FIA Section:

I trust everyone’s fall semester is off to a great start.  I promise to keep this update short, briefly reflecting on what this Section has accomplished in our first two years and what I hope we can accomplish in our next two.  First, highlights of what we have accomplished as the AAA’s newest Section:

·   Our membership has grown to over 550 members. While other sections’ memberships have been relatively stagnant or suffered declines, our membership continues to grow. Just this past year, we added almost 100 new members. (Thanks to Natalie Churyk and her committee for their innovative recruiting strategies.)

·   Starting with a blank ream of paper, we now have Bylaws, an operations manual, and a strategic plan (all posted on our new website). (Thanks to Priscilla Burnaby and Zabi Rezaee and their committees’ members for their hard work laying the groundwork for our Section’s continued growth.)

·   We have had two successful Midyear Research Conferences. (Thanks to Sam Tiras and his committee and LSU for hosting.) By the way, mark your calendar for March 30-31, 2012 for our 2012 Midyear Research Conference in Chicago; Cindy Durtschi and her committee have some interesting surprises in store for us.

·   Our participation on the AAA Annual Meeting program has grown from the two sessions that I was able to carve out when I coordinated the Auditing Section’s Program two years ago to the nine concurrent and panel sessions that we hosted last month in Denver. (Thanks to Rich Brody and Debbie Sinclair for their efforts putting together such interesting sessions, as well as all the reviewers, moderators, and panelist for their contributions.) 

As I promised to keep this short, please forgive me for neglecting the efforts of our other committees and regional coordinators that keep our section humming.  While these accomplishments are the collective result of our members’ hard work, none of what we have accomplished together would have been possible without Larry Crumbley’s vision and ability to strong arm “volunteers” to accomplish the section’s goals, and for that, we are eternally grateful. 

I wish to thank our organizational sponsors. You can find a list of our sponsors on page 40. Now for what I hope we can accomplish in the Section’s next two years:

1.   I want to continue to strengthen our relationships with other organizations that share our goals and objectives, including the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the American College of Forensic Examiners International (ACFEI), the Institute for Fraud Prevention (IFP), and the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (NACVA). I am working on several initiatives, but remain open to others’ suggestions and ideas to accomplish this objective.

2. Although our syllabus exchange has been active (a quick shout out to Ronny Daigle for his efforts), I hope to increase members’ ability to share teaching and research initiatives through increased participation in the AAA Commons.

3.  Although I remain cautiously optimistic about getting a Section journal within the next couple of years, Chih-Chen Lee and her committee have gotten us off to a great start.

4. Similar to what other Sections have pioneered, I would like to see us conduct a Boot Camp for educators just starting out teaching fraud and forensics classes.  Please drop me a note if you are interested in participating either as an instructor or attendee.

These are ambitious objectives which I recognize cannot be accomplished without your support and continued spirit of volunteerism (more than 100 members sent me e-mails this summer volunteering their time).  I look forward to working with each of you over the next two years and hope to see everyone in Chicago in late March next year. 

Best regards,

/s/ Tim Louwers

2011-2013 President, Forensic and Investigative Accounting Section