Trustee spotlight: Robert Scherba.

• Position: Williams International Corp. - Occupation overview

"We have a lot of change being forced onto us these days," notes Robert (Bob) Scherba, senior vice president, Finance & People Development of Williams International. "Good, practical applied research can help us deal with this change."

At Williams, Scherba has responsibility for finance, human resources, information technology and integrated business planning. He joined Williams in 1986 as director, Management Information Systems. He was named vice president. Finance and Administration in February 1992, and senior vice president in March 2006.

Williams International is a medium-sized privately held company. "I don't have the resources of a Fortune 500 company," Scherba says, "so I value the research and resources that FERF provides." Scherba is especially interested in research that could help privately held companies like the one he works for. "I want to know how convergence to International Financial Reporting Standards is going to affect our taxes. We are a government contractor, so I also want to know how IFRS will affect the government's cost accounting standards."

Scherba is vice chair of FERF and chairs the FERF Research Committee. The former chair of the committee, Dave Braden, assistant vice president for...