Mitch Frank.

• Position: BNSF Railway, Inc.'s general director talks about career in tax - Interview

For some corporate tax practitioners, interest in tax issues begins with their first job in the financial area; for others it's law school; still others, college. But for Mitch Frank, general director, taxes, at BNSF Railway Inc., it began in high school.

"I took a bookkeeping course that included reference to taxation and found that very interesting. I always credit Shelby Schichtl for my accounting career, since she taught that course. Also, during college while pursuing my accounting degree, I was very motivated by the fact that my mother was also pursuing her accounting degree."

Like Son, Like Mother

Franks mother finished her degree and achieved CPA certification. "That always made me extremely proud of my mom but also thankful for a profession that offers the potential for success even for those that may enter their career later in life," Frank notes.

Prior to coming to BNSF, Frank joined American Airlines at a senior level to assist in leading its tax department through the company's emergence from bankruptcy. "However, an unexpected change put me in the position of working with those at US Airways to integrate our two tax departments as a result of a merger coupled with the bankruptcy emergence process," Frank says. "While at American, I worked to some degree in every area of the department, ultimately heading up the income tax accounting and compliance group for the merged business. That gave me the chance to build an excellent team by folding together strong players from each department and attracting new talent for certain technical roles."

The JCPenney Experience

Frank's career path includes five years in public accounting (he was with PW before there was a C in its name), which he left just before his first child was born. He transitioned from Price Waterhouse to JCPenney, which was settling in Dallas after moving from New York in the late 1980s. "That role began on the compliance staff but quickly morphed to a position on the research and planning team as 'low man in the group," Frank says. At that time, he explains, JCPenney was a true conglomerate with business operations in almost every industry: retail, of course, but also banking, insurance, property/casualty and life insurance, international operations, and real estate partnership investments. "One of the funny things from my perspective on joining JCPenney was I already knew each of those industries well from PW client assignments, except for retail, my new employer's...