In the first segment of this two-part podcast, Brent describes the fateful meeting that changed his career and pioneered a whole new life science industry practice. He traces his journey to that point and how he looked out with excitement — and no small degree of discomfort — at where this opportunity was heading. Nine months later, in part two, he tells us that growth in life sciences is up more than 20 percent — and how this once fledgling practice is moving from “experienced” to truly “specialized.”

Got an entrepreneurial spark but haven’t yet aligned your passions with your work? That’s when the joyless daily grind can set in — but also some real creative tension and the possibility for exciting career growth and satisfaction. Eric Beenken and Brenan Kurvers personal stories can show you how industry specialization may be just the thing that turns your spark into a fire. Industry Forward starts now!

[00:00:00]

John: Welcome, CLA family, to Industry Forward, a podcast

designed to tell the stories behind the CLA promise. We create opportunities

when we live the CLA culture, leadership, ownership, entrepreneurship.

[00:00:17]

At the center of CLA promise is our purpose, our why for

existence, to create opportunities for our clients, create opportunities for

our people, and create opportunities for our communities. Industry

specialization propels, enables, and drives all of those. Industry specialization

drives seamless capabilities. Industry specialization drives careers.

[00:00:46]

So why specialize? A better question is, “How do you

get started? And what’s it like when you’re just getting going?” So today,

we’ve invited Eric Beenken from our River Valley region, specializing

agribusiness but really in the pork industry, and Brendan Kurvers from our

Minneapolis office. He’s part of the M&D team but has been taken on the

leadership of driving our food and beverage practice. Welcome to the mic, guys.

[00:01:15]

Eric: Thanks, John.

[00:01:16]

Brendan: Thanks, John.

[00:01:17]

John: Glad to have you here. I’m gonna start with a really

simple question if I can today, just to get started. Let’s start with your

personal story. Brendan, tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:01:27]

Brendan: Yeah, certainly. Grew up in the south side of

Minneapolis here, so grew up in Burnsville, Minnesota, which is about three

suburbs out of Minneapolis. Wound up at North Dakota State in Fargo. So spent

some time in North Dakota and then found myself back in Minneapolis, working

for CLA shortly thereafter college. Really got my start with CLA in 2012 with a

manufacturing, distribution internship.

[00:01:52]

And then found myself back at CLA in 2013 with another

summer internship, and then finally fulltime–As Dudley Ryan would say, I was a

seasonal intern. But found my way back fulltime in 2014. And that’s where I

really nestled into the manufacturing, distribution group.

[00:02:09]

John: So why accounting and finance? Why CPA?

[00:02:13]

Brendan: Yeah. It’s an interesting story, John. I actually

really went up to North Dakota State to be a pharmacist.

[00:02:19]

John: A pharmacist?

[00:02:20]

Brendan: Yeah. So a little bit of a pivot from what a CPA

does on a day-to-day. But at the end of the day, where I found my passion, when

I was in high school, was helping people. And the easiest thing that I could

really see was something that was frontline and center for me, my mom went

through two bouts of cancer when I was growing up. And I saw the immense amount

of drugs that were going into her body to combat this cancer.

And something, for me,

Charlie and Josh have taken two very different career

journeys in the FI industry, but they agree passionately on this: an

entrepreneurial approach to serving banks and credit unions is what sets CLA

apart. Together they lead our FI practice, which now boasts $70M in revenue,

more than 250 staff members, and roughly 1,500 clients. Let their stories of

grit and success inspire your own industry specialization path.

[00:00:24]

John:

Welcome CLA family to this podcast designed to tell the stories behind the CLA

promise. I’m John Langan, chief industry officer for our regulated industries.

We create opportunities when we live our culture as entrepreneurs, owners, and

leaders. At the center of the CLA promise is our why: to create opportunities.

Behind the CLA are a set of core beliefs. One of them is helping verse selling:

A belief that specialization enables us to focus less on ourselves and our

practice service specialty and more on our clients’ needs and opportunities.

[00:01:02]

As

we get to know our clients better and help them more it will in fact result in

growth for CLA. That’s industry specialization at CLA. Industry specialization

equals growth along with better quality, profitability, and more inspired

careers. But how do you get started? And how do you build a succession plan for

yourself? To answer those questions, we’ve invited two industry specialists,

financial institutions leaders MPI Charlie Cameron from our St. Louis office

and Josh Juergensen, an FI principal in the Minneapolis office.

[00:01:39]

Charlie

and Josh, welcome. You represent two ends of the industry journey, so exploring

it from both of your perspectives will provide real insight to our audience.

Let’s start with your personal stories. How long have you been with the firm?

Tell us about your career and what you have that brought you to this place.

And, Charlie, let’s start with you.

[00:02:00]

Charlie:

Thanks, John. I’m in my eighth year now with CLA. I actually merged my legacy

firm in at the beginning of 2012 when we first began operating at CLA. After

spending a few years with the Big Four at the beginning of my career, I worked

for 12 years for a regional bank holding company in St. Louis. After that bank

was sold, I purchased a small niche bank consulting firm and ran it for 12

years. By hiring some good people, many of which are still with us today, we

were able to grow consistently and establish a good reputation in the

marketplace.

[00:02:38]

In

2017, I began transitioning into my current role FI. Our FI practice now

stretches across the country, as totally revenue approximately $70 million, and

consists of about 250 total staff members.

[00:02:54]

John:

And I’ll bet as you started in this industry you had no idea you’d be sitting

on top of revenue of that size.

[00:03:00]

Charlie:

Absolutely no idea. It’s been a great ride.

[00:03:03]

John:

So, Josh, tell us about your story.

[00:03:05]

Josh:  Thanks, John. I followed the more traditional

career path starting right out of college coming to CLA back in 2007, currently

in my 13th business season. By dumb luck, I happened to be placed in the

financial institutions practice and here we are today.

CEO Denny Schleper reaches out to our CLA family to recognize everyone during these busy times and give special thanks to those carrying the CLA Promise forward.

Music up

Man:

Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA podcast created to share what

guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.

[00:00:14]

Denny:

Hello, CLA family. This is Denny, coming to you at the beginning of March,

really in the heart of opportunity season. I hope that all of you are finding

those opportunities for yourselves and helping you build those inspired

careers. And I also hope that we’re finding those wonderful opportunities for

our clients as well. I am going to be very brief today. I know many of us are

so very, very busy providing these opportunities and creating them.

[00:00:42]

I just wanted to maybe remind all of us that

it’s also a great time of year to really give thanks to all those people around

us that are working so hard helping — carrying the CLA promise forward. And if

you could take just a few seconds each and every day to thank those people, it

does mean a tremendous amount to all of us this time of year. Also, there’s

ways to do this, like Workday — Workday app, if you have it on your phones,

just very quickly and easily to jump on that, give feedback, give recognition

to those, again, around you.

[00:01:19]

If I could also ask to keep our eyes and ears

open to those around us that are really looking for help and make sure that

we’re providing the help to them wherever it is needed. Also, for those of you

needing that help, please don’t hide. Make sure that you raise your hand. Make

sure that you get to people, asking for that help that you need. All of us in

the CLA family will operate that way together and I’m confident that, together,

we can get through this very busy time.

[00:01:51]

Things are off to a very good start in 2019.

Again, thanks to everyone in the CLA family working so hard. So I’m recognizing

all of you, I’m thanking all of you for the tremendous efforts that are being

put forth. Thank you so very much on behalf of myself, the executive team, the

leadership advisory team, and the board of directors.

[00:02:15]

Please keep it going through this opportunity season and, once again, reach out for help and make sure, if you’re being asked, that we respond as well as we possibly can to help all of us in the CLA family. Hang in there and have a good rest of the opportunity season.

Thank you.

Music out

Sam Metcalf, Managing Principal of Industry, has built an impressive career on a lifetime passion for the M&D industry. She explains how market segments are screaming for highly specialized professionals, and she has some profoundly helpful insights for those who want to take advantage of the tremendous opportunities this offers. One of her most fascinating tips? Be inquisitive and don’t hold back any of your questions.

[00:00:04]

Narrator: John Richter takes a moment to catch up with Sam Metcalf who’s built an impressive career on a lifetime passion for the M&D industry. She explains the need for highly specialized professionals, and shares her helpful insights for those who want to take advantage of new and exciting opportunities. One tip? Be inquisitive… ask questions. Industry Forward starts now .

Music up…

[00:00:36]

John: Hello, CLA

family. Welcome to the Industry Forward podcast, the podcast designed to tell

you the stories behind the CLA promise and the careers that have been inspired

because of industry specialization. We create opportunities when we live the

CLA culture and fulfill the CLA promise.

[00:00:55]

We

act as leaders, owners, entrepreneurs. At the center of this CLA promise is our

purpose, our why: to create opportunities, to wake up each morning and ask

ourselves, for whom will we create an opportunity today? If we did that, if we

act in accordance with that belief, it would be a different firm. Imagine a

firm where every morning, every person wakes up asking themselves, “Who am

I going to create opportunities for today?”

[00:01:24]

Well,

today, we’re going to hear about an individual who had a multitude of

opportunities created, mostly through the industry of manufacturing and

distribution.  Samantha Metcalf, welcome

to the microphone. Would you tell us a little bit about your career?

[00:01:41]

Sam: Sure. Well, I

don’t know if you know this, but I came from Cleveland, Minnesota, population

600 people. Graduated with 40 kids in my class and was from a very rural

community. My dad was the sales director of a manufacturing and distribution

company. They manufactured passenger elevators, and so I grew up following my

dad around, riding on top of elevators, meeting individuals on the

manufacturing floor.

My

first job was babysitting the owner’s kids, and then I transitioned into

working for the manufacturing company. I ran parts. I drove these very large

vehicles all over the state of Minnesota and Iowa delivering manufactured parts

to the customers.

[00:02:24]

John: I’m trying to

imagine Sam Metcalf driving a big truck, but let’s go with it.

[00:02:30]

Sam: It was

dangerous, let’s just put it that way. So, it was fun. It was great. But it

gave me a passion for the industry; it gave me a passion for the people. And so

I went to college, went to St. Mary’s University and got an accounting degree.

And mainly, that was because my mom was an accountant, and not knowing exactly

what I wanted to do, I thought, you know, she was very good at her job; I would

follow in her footsteps.

[00:02:53]

So,

started with a small public accounting firm. And I did a bit of everything. I

served non-profits, I did 1099s, I did manufacturing companies.

Optimism and opportunity are everywhere. A great deal of our success is due to our commitment to the CLA Promise. Listen as Denny shares amazing client feedback as well as his thoughts on why so many people see what we have as something truly special.

[00:00:02]

Narrator: Welcome to Own the Promise, a

CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every

relationship we cultivate.

[00:00:16]

Denny: Hello, CLA family. This is Denny

Schleper coming to you in the heart of opportunity season. I hope everyone’s

winter and the opportunity season is off to a great start.

I know I was looking at some of the

preliminary budgets for 2019, and it looks like the budgets are coming back

with some very strong optimistic growth in 2019, in the upper 7 percent, close

to 8 percent range in revenue growth for the firm, so a lot of optimism, lots

of opportunity, obviously, in this season. I know that many of you are

extremely busy.

[00:00:56]

It’s not everyone’s busy time of the

year, but for a large part of the firm, it is, and I just wanted to share an

experience that I had over the last week or so with the entire family, because

I think it really is so critical and so important that we keep what we have at

CLA very much in mind, and this experience really came from the wealth summit

that we had in Arizona at the end of January.

[00:01:27]

For those of you that don’t know, we

brought together roughly 280 or so clients throughout the country that

participate in our wealth advisory services, and this was an opportunity for us

to bring them together, obviously get to know them better, build stronger

relationships so that we could help them better,

But also to do some education and an

opportunity just simply to attract more activity in our wealth advisory

services to them. But it was a time for these wealth advisory clients to learn

more about CLA as well.

[00:02:04]

And I think what they learned and the

feedback that I received at this summit was really something amazing to me,

because I think when those wealth advisory clients were able to get to

understand CLA and who we are and what we have to offer to a greater extent, it

really was so well received.

And some of the responses that I

received just made me step back and question myself, why is it that what we

have at CLA, why is it so special?

[00:02:42]

And I’ve been thinking about that ever

since the summit, and what really came to mind for me was all of the people in

the CLA family that really go beyond I’d say their day-to-day jobs and even

leadership roles that they take on, call it within their job activity, but

people that go even beyond that and take on roles that are really what I’ve

always referred to as “and” roles.

They do all the things related to their

jobs, but on top of that, they volunteer for things, and so they really take on

an “and” position, not an “or,” not an

“either-or,” but really everything that they do in their job and the

volunteer opportunities that they find.

[00:03:35]

And I just started listing some of

those. I started listing, you know, really starting with the board of

directors. If you think about,

The CLA Promise offers many opportunities to the CLA family. One such opportunity is Deep Industry Specialization but it doesn’t happen overnight. Hear how one CLA veteran became an expert in an industry that wasn’t part of his original plan and why he encourages all of us to explore unique opportunities in our path to specialization.

[00:00:04]

Jeff: Welcome, CLA Family, to our Industry Forward podcast designed

to tell the industry stories behind the CLA Promise. Many of you are on the

path of specialization. Others are just getting started. At CLA, we exist to

create opportunities. However, these opportunities may not always be aligned

with your current specialization path. Today, we’ll be talking with Cory

Rutledge, the MPI of our Senior Living practice.

Cory’s 16 years at CLA have not

always been spent focused on Senior Living. Listen to Cory’s career journey,

including how he evaluated his various opportunities presented to him from an

emotional and career perspective and what he did to become specialized along

the journey. Cory, welcome to Industry Forward. Could you share some of your

highlights of your career journey at CLA?

[00:00:59]

Cory: Yeah, I’d be happy to. Thanks, Jeff. So I started as a

traditional CPA here at CLA about 16 years ago. I started actually doing

hospital work. I dabbled in kind of little jobs here and there, but really

started my career path in terms of industry specialization in our hospital

group, and I spent probably the first seven years of my career serving hospital

clients throughout the country and then actually was asked by you, of all people,

to change my career path and my industry focus and move to our Senior Living

practice which was probably about eight or nine years ago.

[00:01:37]

Jeff: A lot of information in there, Cory. I want to unpack a few

of those comments here as we go today. First of all, I’m just interested. As

you think about specialization, you think about whether it’s hospitals or Senior

Living or any of the other, but why healthcare? Why did you get involved in

healthcare when you started 16 years ago?

[00:01:54]

Cory: I feel like some people, you know, when they start in an

industry, they feel as though they have to have a passion for that industry day

one, and I know that there’re some people in our practice that do. You know, I

think of some people that I’ve talked to in our manufacturing group that grew

up in a manufacturing household, and so they’re drawn to that industry. That is

not the case for me. I started in healthcare literally because I was a job

fair. I wanted a job that paid me money, and someone said, “Do you want to

be in healthcare?” And so my answer was, “Yes.” So I did not

have any kind of intrinsic draw to healthcare. I basically just wanted a job

with a paycheck.

[00:02:29]

Jeff: I think many people probably at CLA can resonate around the

fact that, “Give me an opportunity. Give me a job, and we can make a great

career out of it.” So maybe let’s just dig a little bit deeper in sort of

expanding your industry, getting knowledgeable. You spent the first seven

years, I believe you mentioned, in the hospital industry, and what were some of

the key things you did to drive sort of that industry specialization, the

knowledge, the expertise, that as you were early in your career, you know,

years one through seven?

As we begin a new year with new promises, we want to focus on opportunities that will translate directly into your inspired career, opportunities to better serve our clients, and CLA’s new focus on social responsibility.

[00:00:02]

Narrator:  Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA

podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every

relationship we cultivate.

[00:00:15]

Denny: Hello, CLA family.

This is Denny coming to you at the beginning of 2019. I hope everyone had some

great time at the end of 2018 to relax, enjoy some time with your family and

friends, and really an

opportunity to sit back and hopefully appreciate the incredible great year that

CLA had in 2018.

[00:00:41]

I

want to again thank all of you for the efforts that were put in to make this a

great firm, and not only great results but really moving the culture of CLA and

the CLA family. I also want to look at 2019 and update you on some of the

wonderful things that are happening here very soon. Probably within the next

day or so you will be receiving — our clients will be receiving and our alumni

will be receiving — our CLA Promise Report for 2018.

[00:00:54]

Really

recapping all of the tremendous things that had happened in 2018 and also the

look ahead at 2019. Please

read that if you would. Watch some of the embedded videos. It’s an

opportunity, I think, to get better informed as to what has truly happened

within CLA and better prepare all of you to not only speak with your clients

but speak with the people in your communities and also our people across the country.

[00:01:44]

So

please take a look at that CLA Promise Report. Also as we enter into January,

we are entering into opportunity season. As you know in ‘18 we finished up with

the summer at CLA and we headed into the promise season, and now in January of ‘19

we’re headed into our opportunity season. What does that really mean? It’s

really an opportunity season — one for all of us, our people — it’s really

designed to be a very inspirational season.

[00:02:16]

It

is called opportunity season because we want to reflect on what opportunities

could be available for

really your inspired careers. You know, every time we have an

opportunity to do more for our clients, more service opportunities, that should

translate directly into your inspired careers and building opportunities for

that. So we hope that that

clearly happens during opportunity season.

[00:02:43]

What

about for our clients? Well, what we’re really gonna be looking at in

opportunity season for our clients is really an idea that we’re not done

serving our client until the opportunity is found. In other words, in every

compliance, even if it’s beyond compliance opportunity we have to serve, we’re

gonna be looking as where

is that opportunity, and have we found that opportunity for our client?

[00:03:14]

We

serve over 150,000 clients, so that’s 150,000 opportunities that we should be

creating during this season. And then of course continued focus on our

communities, not only through the CLA foundation, which I hope gets kicked off

to a very fast start in 2019, but also what we’re going to be doing is kicking

off really the start of CLA social responsibility.

[00:03:43]

[00:00:05]

Langan: Our promise comes alive when we live our culture, when we are entrepreneurs, owners, and leaders. At the center of the CLA promise is our promise to know you and help you, and especially in pursuing the why, to create opportunities for our clients, our people, and communities. The strategic advantages that support our promise include two we will focus on today; deep industry specialization and being the career building firm.

[00:00:31]

Our

belief is that industry specialization connects us to our clients in a deeper

and more meaningful way than a narrow focus on a particular service specialty,

and in doing so, it creates more meaningful opportunities for our clients, our

people, and even in today’s example, our communities.

[00:01:02]

Welcome,

CLA family, to our Industry Forward podcast, designed to tell the industry

stories behind the CLA promise. I’m John Langan, Chief Industry Officer at CLA.

What does the life cycle of industry specialization look like and how does it

create these opportunities? To help us answer these questions, we’ve invited

Nat Bartholomew, our Washington D.C. based National Association Practice leader

and John Tauer, our Minneapolis based non-profit based industry leader, to

speak to us today.

[00:01:32]

Both

Nat and John have built and led significant association practices over their

career that have created opportunities for their clients, their teams, the

firm, and themselves. So Nat, let’s start with you. How did you first come to

service associations and decide that this would be your primary concentration?

[00:01:50]

Nat: Well, John, I wish I had a cool answer right out of the blocks, but honestly, it was an opportunity. I took it and I ran with it. One of the managers in our association practice was a member at ASAE and left the firm. And so when that person left, I just picked up their membership and started to go. The idea was, I heard it was cool meetings, it was fun, it was great destinations, and honestly, that’s kind of what took me into this.

[00:02:15]

But

what really happened next was, I had a lot of fun, had a lot of fun doing it,

and so I became a specialist in the nonprofit sector and really started looking

at associations as really, truly a different group. I wanted to succeed, so

bottom line, I attended, I listened, I read, I did everything I could do, you

know, just any opportunity to get me in front of associations. You know, when

people ask me, they say, “What do you do, Nat? You know, what is it you

do?”

[00:02:42]

And

after trying to explain I’m not just an accountant or I can’t do taxes, it’s,

you know, I explain, I interpret financial information for the best of the best

in every profession and industry under the sun. Last Monday, I was with the

board of the National Association of Broadcasters. That means the CEO of TVs

and radio stations–the largest media groups in the nation, on the planet.

[00:03:05]

By

Wednesday, I was with the Military Officers Association of America, their

board, down in Phoenix, Arizona. I met with admirals and generals. And then

that Friday, I was with the CFO of National Rural Electric Cooperative

Association. They’ve got 20 related entities. They’ve got two ten-story office

buildings in Arlington, 25 billion in three investments, in investment funds,

Following the recent announcement that Wisconsin-based CPA firm Schenck team members will be joining CLA, Denny Schleper has a short Q&A with Schenck CEO Dan Young.

[00:00:02]

Narrator: Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.

[00:00:15]

Denny: Hello, CLA family. This is Denny coming to you once again in the month of December, getting towards the end of a very, very successful year of 2018. Thank you for everyone within the CLA family for really transforming CLA from what we thought was that very good firm to really that great firm, and having truly a great year thanks to everyone’s efforts within the family. Obviously, as we look into 2019, we’re gonna be looking to say, “How can we become an even greater firm?”

And as part of that today, we have some exciting news that was announced last week, and I know everyone within the CLA family is aware that the Schenck CPA firm based out of Wisconsin and with multiple locations in Wisconsin will be joining the CLA family as of January 1st. Today I have with me Dan Young, who’s the CEO of Schenck. Dan and I first met each other back in January of this year, so we’ve worked together for about a year, trying to make sure that bringing these two fine organizations together made sense for not only all of the people, but also the clients that we all serve.

So, Dan, welcome to the CLA family, and I’d love for you just to introduce yourself a little bit.

[00:01:42]

Dan: Sure. Hi, Denny. Happy holidays to you, first of all. Yeah, I’ve been with Schenck for about 35, 38 years, something like that. Grew up in Appleton. Have a lovely wife by the name of Karen. We’ve been married a long time, and that’s another story we can share sometime. But I practiced in the area of—before I took this role as CEO—I practiced in the insurance side of things. I was partner in charge of the Green Bay office and was just recently elected, January, to the role of CEO.

And I kinda laugh now that—I tell the folks that this is the shortest tenured CEO president in the history of Schenck. I’ll last one year.

Denny: [laughs] Yes. Let’s go back, actually, Dan, to January of this year and as we carry through ’18, I know that a lot of things we had to work through, and whatever we didn’t see eye-to-eye, you eventually convinced me and I caved, right? That’s what happened through the…

[00:02:41]

Dan: [laughs] I didn’t know that you realized that, but I’m glad you do.

[00:02:48]

Denny: But we obviously made it through that process. Just share with the CLA family a little bit what, really, you’ve gone through in the last year, somewhat emotionally, probably, but also just some of the major milestones that have brought us to where we are today.

[00:03:05]

Dan: Well, when we first met, it was at the major firms group, I believe, back in January. And I think two days before I met with you, I had a crown, a dental crown, put in. And then that didn’t work, and then a day before I met you, I had a root canal, so you met me at my worst. I was in a lot of pain the first day, and just trying to survive that. But once we got beyond that, a couple things that we had to do here when I first took the role as president of Schenck.

[00:03:35]

We wanted to get our deferred comp in line, and we did do that. We acquired a firm in July 1 called Winter, Kloman, Moter, & Repp. It’s a firm in Milwaukee that had about $9 million of revenue, so we closed on that July 1. I believe we started our actual, serious discussions probably sometime in May. So from May until now, we’ve been working diligently together in terms of viewpoints and structure and things like that.