“If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.” — Aristotle

How many of us know the history of our profession?

On Oct. 30, we had the opportunity to recognize a few of Maryland's leading accounting educators for their service to the CPA profession above and beyond their everyday roles in preparing students for careers in accounting.

The occasion was to recognize the important work of these educators in our mission as one of the founding professional associations for CPAs in the United States.  

Pictured from left are yours truly (Tom Hood); Dr. Stephen Loeb, the MACPA's official “historian emeritus” (Stephen is holding the MACPA history book, which he edited); Dr. Jim McKinney, holding a plaque with our Board resolution recognizing him for taking the reigns as our new official historian; and Dr. Marty Loeb, chair of the accounting department at our flagship school, the University of Maryland in College Park.

We were reflecting on how important the knowledge of our history has been to our ongoing efforts to protect and promote the CPA profession. Did you know that Maryland was the third state to license CPAs in the nation (in 1901)? We were also the first state to restrict audits to only CPAs (in 1924) and the first state to require ethics education in undergraduate degrees in order to sit for the CPA exam. All of these and many more milestones are captured in our history book titled Our Past, Our Future: 100 Years of CPAs in Maryland (1901 – 2001).

This occasion marked the beginning of a new era in which we will be capturing our history as we go under the leadership of Dr. McKinney. Plans include the use of multimedia and software to make our history even more accessible using the Web.