From Computer Programing to Financial Planning

Roger was born in 1952 in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

Three years later Roger’s family moved to Richardson, Texas, a northern suburb of Dallas, housing 600 technology companies such as Nortel, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Tellabs, Texas Instruments, and AT&T.  They lived across the street street from Texas Instruments, Rockwell Collins, and other high tech companies.

As a result, although his two brothers were very athletic, Roger grew up in the company of scientists and engineers.  Among his acquaintances was Alan Ashton, the co-founder of Word Perfect.

By 1968 when he was in high school, Roger was able to program his first computer.  While attending college at Brigham Young University, Roger was already a computer programmer, working with an IBM 360.  This was a huge main frame computer the size of Arcadia Rotary’s entire luncheon meeting room at the Embassy Suites. 

Nevertheless, Roger graduated from Brigham Young with a B.A. in finance and accounting.

For variety, Roger became part of a 250 member symphony band.  He also took part in a slide rule competition in which the emphasis was on speed.  Roger had an idea as to how to arrive at speedier decimal calculations.  Unfortunately his idea contained a flaw and resulted in his results being off by four decimal points.

Then Roger returned to Utah for two more years at Brigham Young, specializing in electrical engineering.

After this, Roger found himself once again in Texas where he started his career in accounting.

Roger’s accounting career next took him to Californis where he spent 3 1/2 years in a Pasadena accounting firm.  After this, Roger started his own CPA firm in Burbank which preoccupied him for the next 27 years bringing us up to the present. During this time, Roger became a Certified Financial Planner and acquired other specialty designations in order to better serve his clients in providing them with helpful financial advice.