Member Profile

Jonnell Quarrie

Editor’s note. At the time this article was written, Quarrie was director of tax at MOD Pizza but has since started as director of tax at Dutch Bros. When Jonnell Quarrie was taking accounting classes in college, she realized she didn’t like accounting. That happens. But she did like tax,… Read more »

Melissa Smith

When Melissa Smith was in her second year of law school, she thought most students knew what they wanted to do in their budding legal careers. “Some wanted to be litigators, some wanted to be corporate lawyers. Everybody seemed to know, and I had no clue.” But then, she says,… Read more »

Danielle Beluch

Danielle Beluch doesn’t consider herself a “traditional” tax person. Here’s how she explains it: “I started my studies as a chemistry major, but when I proved to be a klutz in the lab, I knew I had to pick another industry to study. Accounting seemed to be a safe option,… Read more »

Steve Saunders

Steve Saunders gained an appreciation of the complexity of tax early in his career as a CPA. Here’s how he explains it: “I assumed tax was fairly prescriptive and predictable. As my work became more complex, I gained an appreciation for the nonlinear thinking that is so necessary to being… Read more »

Anna Ogenblad

When Anna Ogenblad was a second-year law student, she took a tax course and was pleasantly surprised: “I thought I was going to hate it, but instead I really found it interesting and decided to take a few more elective tax papers to specialize in tax even further.” Ogenblad, now… Read more »

Cathy Stevens

Cathy Stevens says it’s a myth that being a tax professional means you have very little interaction with other people. On the contrary, say Stevens, director of domestic taxes at Brunswick Corporation: her involvement in controversy and incentive work allows her to meet with other corporate business units and learn… Read more »

Mary Jones

Can tax be a refuge from other academic pursuits? For Mary Jones, director of benefits taxation at Microsoft Corporation, it was. “I fell into the tax space as I was trying to escape litigation and employment law and found the benefits group at an employment law firm with which I… Read more »

Walter Doggett

A great teacher can often make an epic difference in your life. Just ask Walter Doggett, the executive tax director of E*Trade Financial Corporation and incoming TEI international secretary. While attending the University of Virginia, Doggett took elective tax courses from David LaRue, an experience that greatly influenced his future… Read more »

Patricia Likogiannis

Teachers really do make a difference. Just ask Patricia Likogiannis how she got interested in tax as a career. “We had excellent tax instructors when I was an undergraduate majoring in math and accounting at the University of Waterloo,” she says. “Those teachers explained the structure, history, and reasons behind… Read more »

Marji Gordon-Brown

When Marji Gordon-Brown was in law school, she needed an elective. Having majored in accounting as an undergraduate, she thought that taking a somewhat numbers-oriented class would not be too difficult. In that elective, Gordon-Brown says, “I had a wonderful professor, Linda Galler, who was a new, young, energetic teacher.… Read more »