Watching the numbers: Six Utah CPAs who hit the mark.

• Author: Dibble, Marcia C.
• Position: Feature Story

When asked who might be considered Utah's top CPAs, the names of six men and women came readily to the lips of their colleagues. Easy picks, of course, were the "Big Cheeses" at the offices of firms in our capital city: Office Managing Partners (OMPs) whose firms are major players not only in the state, but nationally and globally as well. But we were also introduced to some CPAs who are excelling on their own turf, in their own way. Again and again in our conversations, we found all of these individuals emphasizing core values of hard work, integrity and charity. All are leaders in our community and in their field.

PAUL CHILD, OMP DELOITT & TOUCHE

Public accounting isn't for everybody, but it does provide an opportunity to learn a great deal about business," says Paul Child. Child has dedicated his 31-year career to D&T and became OMP six years ago. He has passed his love of the work on to more than a few who have crossed his path. In fact, several of his children have followed him into public accounting. Child has also applied his skills in service to groups including the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, the Utah Symphony and Valley Mental Health. During his 14 years of close involvement with VMH, Child helped shepherd the organization from a starting fund of about $200,000 to more than $40,000,000 and watched the quality and quantity of services grow dramatically as well.

Early in his career, Child recalls, "I ran into an opportunity to visit with one of the partners who had been here a long time. He said, 'There's never been a day that I've failed to learn something new.' And honestly, that is the case. Every day, there's something new in the business arena to make this job very interesting."

D SCOTT PETERSON, OMP ERNST & YOUNG

When Scott Peterson left his rural Nevada hometown for college, he assumed he was going to become an attorney. "I knew I wanted to be a professional, and the only profession that I had been exposed to in my teeny tiny town was the law." But as his schooling progressed, Peterson realized that law wasn't his passion--accounting was.

After graduating at the top of his class, with both a bachelor's and master's degree, Peterson taught briefly at Brigham Young University before joining Ernst & Young's Bay Area office in 1980. There he served large, multinational clients including RJR Nabisco, which allowed him to travel all over the world including the U.K., much of Asia and virtually every Latin American country. Seven...