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On Campus: The forensic accountant

Posted at 5:34 PM on January 28, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: News Cut on Campus

Timothy Bonner, originally from Brooklyn and now a Minneapolis resident, knows firsthand the woes of the mortgage industry. He was the guy who called potential customers for a mortgage company until the company went bankrupt and tossed him out of his job.

"I always felt, not just the mortgage business but the economy as a whole was getting too big," he said, rattling off a list of recessions he's weathered over his 42 years.

So he's trying to get a degree in business administration, taking general courses at Minneapolis Community and Technical College before transferring, he hopes, to the University of Minnesota.

He's been trying to pay for college by working a minimum wage job. "I had to let the job go. Thanks to the school I qualified for a scholarship and I just have to concentrate on being ready when the economy does recover, having the skills and resources necessary for this recovery. I don't just want to do sales over the phone, I want to do things that are more meaningful."

One area he'd like to concentrate on is one area that should be in big demand: forensic accounting. "It's just like a forensic will look at a crime scene, a forensic accountant will find things that maybe you don't want to be found," he said.

Listen

Comments (2)

I have a cousin who turned an accounting degree into a career with the FBI. They hire the numbers people to help prosecute white-collar crime and, now, sniff out the funding sources for unsavory groups (i.e. terrorists).

Posted by bsimon | January 29, 2009 12:54 PM

I think that what you stated in the interview was very good. We are really going to be needing you around when all this mess is over with the ecomony-Good Luck..............

Posted by belinda | February 3, 2009 3:51 PM