Outsourced Accounting & Human Resources Services
877-535-1183
Madison
301 S. Blount Street
Suite 204
Madison, WI 53703
Milwaukee
313 N Plankinton Avenue
Suite 205
Milwaukee, WI 53203
Meet a Fine Point recent addition and find out what makes him tick. This week: Leroy Kolacinski, Controller at the Fine Point Consulting Milwaukee office.
Tell us about the work you do for Fine Point. I provide CFO and/or controller services for a multitude of our very fine clients. This ranges from simply providing and explaining financial statements on a quarterly basis to helping to guide a growing, entrepreneurial company to establish itself at it next level. Besides all of that, I’m not opposed to helping out in any other way that I can, with the caveat that I don’t do windows.
Tell us about your educational and professional background before you arrived at FPC. I’ve spent more than my share of money on education. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a major in music education. I spent 7 years teaching band in the Burlington (WI) Area School District. While there, I went back to UW-Milwaukee to get a Master of Science degree in Administrative Leadership and Supervision in Education, which is a fancy way of saying I got licensed as a school principal, something I never did. I left the education field and did a number of different jobs including managing a music store, being “Mr. Mom,” selling life insurance, and straightening trombone slide tubes. (You didn’t know that was a thing, did you?) Once I decided what I wanted to be when I grew up, I enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater where I received a Master of Professional Accountancy degree. In the accounting and finance fields, I’ve worked in retail, manufacturing (for an American subsidiary of a Japanese company), and in the not-for-profit world (where the goal was not making a profit, as opposed to a money-losing company). I’ve held titles from accounts payable clerk to accounting manager, to controller, to CFO. (Did I mention that I also received a certificate of completion in paralegal studies from Carthage College?)
What do you like most about working at Fine Point? Aside from the friendly co-workers and the absolutely marvelous CEO, I love the fact that every day I will have new challenges because I won’t be stuck working with the same issues within the same company every day.
Luella is a big reader. Any favorite business, accounting, or other books, blogs, or podcasts you like? There are sooooo many. I have Audible and listen to books as I sit in the sauna after my morning workout, so it’s difficult to name a single favorite. I guess, if pressed, I would go back many years to a book suggested by one of my undergraduate professors who offered that, if we bought and didn’t enjoy the book, he’d buy it from us. (I never tried to get my money back from him.) The book is The Glory and the Dream by William Manchester and is a history of the United States from the initial election of Franklin Roosevelt as President to just after the events of the Watergate controversy and Richard Nixon’s resignation.
One thing others might be surprised to learn about you. I am an award-winning professional photographer and have actually had one of my photographs featured on the cover of a national magazine.
When you’re not working at FPC you….. indulge in my photography, cook, travel to the Caribbean, visit my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter, and ride my TerraTrike Rambler tadpole recumbent tricycle.
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