Accounting/Finance.

• Position: Meet the Staff

Perhaps no FEI department has as many moving parts as the Accounting/Finance Department, which carries out the day-to-day collections and postings that any significant business does, as well as dealing with long-range budget and investment issues, benefits, IRS filings and, of course, the annual audit.

For CFO Paul Chase--promoted last year from Controller--that means a combination of inward and outward responsibilities. While he has ultimate oversight over the day-to-day functioning of the department, Chase, who joined FEI in June 1999, is also involved in regular calls and meetings with agents, brokers and other advisers, and with several FEI committees involved with oversight of FEI financial matters.

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With these outside responsibilities, much of the daily functioning of the department is overseen directly by Accounting Manager Maria O'Grady, who joined FEI in October 2001. O'Grady also handles FEI payroll issues, and is heavily involved in the preparation of monthly closing statements. As Chase describes it, she's focused inward, "to make sure that our operation controls are set up, and that the processes are working."

"My role is to set the overall direction and to do the long-range forecasts for our department, and to keep in touch with what's going on with the other departments," he says. "We do touch upon all the other departments here, whether it be the budgets, the financials or the operations side. My role is to keep the communication and understanding going between what's happening in other departments and how it may affect us financially, and then to report it up through the financials."

Chase notes that the department operates under a fairly strict schedule that is set at the beginning of each month. Cross-training means that there is backup capability for each position, so in the event of vacations or departures, the job can be done effectively.

"The most important thing we focus on is customer service to the members," he says. "Whether it's getting out the invoices properly, answering billing questions, providing copies of billing receipts--whatever it may be--we give high priority to getting back to member questions." Canadian member accounting is handled by Susan Johnson in the Toronto office, and she and Chase cooperate on consolidated financials.

Rudolph Katzenberger, a Staff Accountant, is responsible for membership accounting. Katzenberger, an FEI employee since last July, works with the...