In the middle of Things: exactly where New CalCPA Chair Tim good likes to be.

• Author: Damien, B.M.
• Position: Cover story

New CalCPA Chair Tim Good, CPA and partner al Windt's. likes to be Ii the middle 01. things. "I think that', what the accounting prokssion allows you La do: be in the middle of things. Your clients need vou. They may have an on-again off-again relationship with their lawyers, but their CPA is the person they lalk to all the time. We're in the mix, and I'm not looking Ibrward to giving that up anytime soon."

Besides the outside heat in Long Beach, the first impression I had of Good was how the azure color of San Pedro Bay almost exactly matched that of his eyes. It was as if the bay and the life he had led around it hac affected him in such a wav. and he has indeed lived in the area most of his life..

But Good was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. "My father was an English South African, whose roots on my grandmother's side go back to the earliest English settlers to Son iii Africa in 1820," Good explains. His mother is English. who traveled South Africa after WWII to visit her sister and, while there, met his lather and lell in love. Soon tin left for the United. States. "I arrived on the shores of this. my adopted country It than a year old. This my adopted country," he says with a smile and St filth African accent.

The family touched down in Chicago. moving to California when Good was 6 years old, which he says makes him pretty close 10 a California native. The familv settled in Palos Verdes. which is relatively close by his office at Windes.

"I'vc never had the gilts to leave home."he jokes, pointing out he has lived in Palos Verdes most of his adult life. When I got out of school. my wife at the time(who was also a Palos Verdes kid) and I wanted to move back home even though we couldn't afford a house there."In fact. there are a number of folks who grew up in Palos Verdes that still live there. who will take no guff from anyone about that choice and simply point Out the lovely scenery and close-by waterfront as a retort.

Good attended high school in Palos Verdes, graduating in the early "70s. and says he vas interested in die typical signs or the time like music. politics and. of course. girls. However. the Vietnam Vkar accentuated his interest or politics. 'Tye always been interested in politics.- he says. -Even CalCPA is about politics its die politics of the prolession. The government relations piece ol. what CalC.:13A does just fascinates me."

Good ran with his interest in politics into his days at the University ol California. Berkeley. where he took politic science courses and majored in economics. His Dad was a chartered accountant in South Africa, and practiced a bit in the United States but never got his CPA license here. Still, he encouraged his son to take an accounting class. "I said. 'Dad. you were never really that hot on accounting, so what, are you going on about?' And I never did take a class."

Drawn to the Profession, Staking a Claim

Good went On to graduate From UC Berkeley with a bachelor's degree ill economics and bounced around a bit in some sales jobs. And then his Dad prodded him again with,"Have you thought about that accounting thing?" This time Good listened and took an accounting class at UCLA Extension.

It made a lot of. sense to me. The area of economics I Was interested in the most was called Industrial Organization, which is st tidying the economics of various industries,"he says. "I found that it...