2024 Higher Education Accounting Forum (Recordings)

Terri Albertson is the vice president for finance and administration at Ursinus College. She was previously with Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and Haverford College. She has spent over 25 years in public accounting at national firms with an industry focus on colleges and universities, healthcare entities, and not-for-profit organizations. She is the current chair of NACUBO's accounting principles council and is a graduate of NACUBO's Fellows program. She is a member of the board of trustees of Salus University and is on the audit and compliance committee and the finance committee.

Shea Bryant has been the manager of financial reporting at Michigan State University for six years after over seven years at Plante Moran where he focused on higher education institutions. Bryant’s department is in charge of preparing the year-end financial statements and implementing new GASB standards as they are issued. Bryant is a member of the NACUBO accounting principles council.

Tammy Buchmayer is a senior business analyst for the financial systems team in accounting and financial reporting at the University of Iowa. Buchmayer has worked at the University of Iowa for 15 years. Prior to her current position, Buchmayer was responsible for bank reconciliations at the University of Iowa and has extensive experience in general accounting for the banking industry.

Buchmayer earned her AAS degree in accounting from Kirkwood Community College.

Carolyn Gritton has worked for the University of Iowa for 35 years and is currently an assistant director for the financial systems team in accounting and financial reporting. Prior to her current position, Gritton was a project member for two general ledger implementations for the University of Iowa and has worked in the Controller's Office organization for the duration of her time at Iowa. Gritton began her career as an internal auditor for 3M Company. 

Gritton holds a CPA license (inactive) in the state of Iowa and earned a BA in accounting degree.

Joel Levenson is assistant vice president for tax, payables, and procurement at the University of Central Florida. He served as chair of the NACUBO Tax Council, member of the Inter-Institutional Committee on Finance and Accounting Officers (ICOFA), Tax Sub-Committee, and the University Tax Peer Group. He is also a former member and co-chair of the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Committee (IRSAC), a four-year appointment.

Karen Mahalo has over 30 years of experience in accounting, reporting, auditing, and compliance. She is currently the university controller for Cornell University. Prior to joining Cornell in April 2021, Mahalo was senior associate controller and served in progressively responsible financial leadership roles for over 15 years at the University of Rochester. 

Mahalo’s prior experience spans multiple industries including healthcare, domestic and international manufacturing, and public accounting. Mahalo has BS in accounting from the Rochester Institute of Technology  and an MBA from the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester. She is a CPA and a member of the NACUBO Accounting Principles Council.

Rachel McGuire is the assistant vice president and university controller at the University of Iowa. Prior to her current position, McGuire was the director of accounting and financial reporting for the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (UIHC) and provided accounting and finance support to the healthcare leadership. McGuire spent most of her career in healthcare at UIHC and the Carver College of Medicine in several finance and accounting positions.  

McGuire began her career in public accounting and holds a CPA license in the state of Iowa. She earned a BBA in accounting and finance and an MBA with a certificate in leadership from the University of Iowa.

Andrew M. Paluf is assistant vice president for finance and controller at the University of Notre Dame. Among his many responsibilities at Notre Dame, where he has worked since 1997, Paluf oversees general accounting, research and sponsored programs accounting, payroll, accounts payable, and the cashier’s office and is responsible for financial statement preparation, tax matters, and all university accounting activities. Paluf is a recipient of the NACUBO Daniel D. Robinson Accounting Award.

A 1980 graduate of Notre Dame, Paluf earned a master’s of business administration degree from Indiana University in 1984 and has been a certified public accountant since 1982.

Cheryl Soper is the assistant vice president for financial operations and controller for the University of Michigan. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, Soper was a senior manager at PwC, where she provided accounting and auditing services to a wide variety of education, not-for-profit and other organizations, including SEC companies.

Soper has a BBA from the University of Michigan, is a certified public accountant, and past chair of the NACUBO Accounting Principles Council. Soper has received the Daniel D. Robinson Accounting Award from NACUBO and currently serves on the NACUBO Higher Education Accounting Forum Planning Committee.

Charlene Sweeney has been at Brown University for 11 years, serving the last 7 years as the university controller.  Prior to Brown University, she worked at KPMG  for almost 15 years in the audit practice serving not-for-profit universities and hospitals.  She is currently the NACUBO representative on the AICPA NFP expert panel. She is a CPA licensed in the state of Rhode Island.

Nicole Tirella, senior vice president, chief financial officer, and treasurer for Boston University oversees the financial operations including accounting and financial reporting, debt and treasury functions, research financial operations, risk management, sourcing and procurement, and internal audit. She is a certified public accountant and an active member of NACUBO's accounting principles council. She spent over seven years as an auditor for KPMG, specializing in higher education and not-for-profit entities. Before coming to Boston University, she was the associate controller at the University of Massachusetts within the president’s office where she led the compilation of the university system’s consolidated financial statements.

Jeff Gabello is a supervising project manager with the FASB. He joined the FASB staff in May 2014, leading the project team that developed the 2017 standard to improve and simplify accounting rules around hedge accounting. Since early 2021, Gabello has focused on not-for-profit technical accounting issues. He also leads the FASB project on the statement of cash flows. 

Prior to joining the FASB, Gabello worked for five years as an accounting policy manager at IBM in Somers, New York. Prior to that, Gabello worked for eight years as the assistant director of external reporting at UBS AG in Zurich, Switzerland, focused on International Financial Reporting Standards, U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reporting. Gabello holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania and an MBA from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Jeff Mechanick is senior project advisor, not-for-profit organizations at the FASB. In this role, he provides organization-wide technical and strategic advice on all standard-setting activities affecting the not-for-profit sector, guides and facilitates stakeholder outreach with the sector, chairs the FASB’s Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee, and participates in some of the FASB’s broader educational activities. 

Prior to joining the FASB staff in 2006, Mechanick spent 20 years working in and with the not-for-profit sector, as the CFO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., and before that, as a Senior Manager with KPMG, LLP, in the firm’s New York office. Mechanick received his MBA from Rutgers University and his AB from the University of Chicago.  He is also an adjunct instructor in Columbia University’s MS program in Nonprofit Management.

Alan Skelton is director of research and technical activities of the GASB. Immediately prior to joining the GASB, Skelton was the state accounting  officer for the state of Georgia where he provided oversight of statewide financial reporting, issued accounting policy and application interpretations of generally accepted accounting principles, and implemented business process improvements. He served as deputy state accounting officer from 2009 to 2012. Previously, Skelton had more than a decade of experience in public accounting, primarily with Ernst & Young.

Skelton served on the GASB’s advisory council from 2015 to 2021, including as its vice chair since 2018. He is a graduate of Florida State University and a certified public accountant.

Joe Wicklund is a project manager with the GASB in Norwalk, Connecticut. His current project assignments include infrastructure assets, subsequent events, and GAAP conformity research. Before joining the GASB, Wicklund worked in higher education administration and finance roles for over 12 years at both public (GASB) and private (FASB) institutions. He was most recently the associate controller of New Jersey’s Rowan University. His previous experience also includes time at PwC performing financial and compliance audits, primarily of higher education and not-for-profit entities. 

Wicklund received a bachelor's of business administration in accounting from Temple University and holds a master's in business administration from Widener University. He is also licensed as a certified public accountant in the state of Pennsylvania.

Rick Cole has more than 25 years of experience serving nonprofit organizations. He is the New York Market Industry Leader for nonprofit and education and is a member of the FORVIS higher education center of excellence. Before joining the firm in 2019, he worked at FASB, where he served as a supervising project manager for almost six years. Prior to joining FASB, Cole was vice president and controller at a large national museum in New York for seven years and a senior manager with a large international accounting firm where he worked for 14 years and specialized in audits of higher education institutions and other nonprofit organizations. He is a lecturer at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, in their nonprofit management program.

Cole is a CPA in New York and New Jersey and is a member of the AICPA and New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants. He is a graduate of Montclair State University, with a BS degree and an MBA degree.

Brian Greko is a partner from Plante Moran, serving Michigan State University. Greko has more than 17 years of experience working primarily with clients in the public and private higher education industry. Greko assists clients with accounting, financial reporting, and other business-related matters, and is a member of the higher education professional standards team.

Kim McCormick is a partner with Grant Thornton LLP and brings over 30 years of experience working with all types of public sector organizations including higher education, research, cultural arts and museums, international relief organizations, environmental advocacy organizations, private foundations and other FASB and GASB-reporting entities. 

McCormick is the immediate past chair of the Executive Committee of the AICPA's Government Audit Quality Center (GAQC), where she served for  seven years. She was a member of the Advisory Council to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) for the 2018 Revision to Government Auditing Standards. McCormick currently serves on the Accounting Advisory Board for Santa Clara University. 

Lindsey Oakley is a partner of assurance services at FORVIS. Lindsey is a member of FORVIS' National Nonprofit, Education, and Public Sector Group and serves in FORVIS’ professional standards group, where she provides technical support to FORVIS auditors, implements new professional standards, and performs concurring reviews on engagements. She also serves as FORVIS’ firmwide national financial reporting partner for nonprofit, education and public sector industry. 

Oakley has worked in the government, non-profit, and education industry for more than 18 years. She is the chair of the Executive Committee of the AICPA Governmental Audit Quality Center.  She also serves on the Comptroller General’s Advisory Council on Government Auditing Standards.

Tracy Paglia has practiced public accounting since 1997 and is a partner at Moss Adams. Paglia is a tax and consulting team member on public charity, private foundation, university, association, and health care clients throughout the firm. Paglia is an integral part of the training programs both internally to Moss Adams and externally to groups such as the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), NACUBO, TEGE Exempt Organization Council, and the Higher Ed Tax Institute. She leads the firm’s tax committee for Not-for-Profit and Government Practices and is a member of the AICPA’s Technical Resource Panel.

Jeff Pohler is an assurance manager from Plante Moran and has more than 9 years of experience, with a primary focus on serving higher education clients and a secondary focus on non-profits. Pohler is a member of the firm's higher education professional standards team and also an industry technical specialist for the higher education practice.

Pete Ugo has over 25 years of audit and consulting experience with Crowe and is based out of the firm’s Indianapolis office.  He is the leader of the firm’s national not-for-profit and higher education audit practice. Ugo is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and began working at Crowe after completing college.  He has spent his entire career working in the not-for-profit and higher education industries, and his client base primarily includes college/universities, foundations, cultural arts, and other not-for-profit organizations. Ugo is a member and current chair of the AICPA’s Not-for-Profit Expert Panel.