PLUGGEDIN: Editor: This profile is...

PLUGGEDIN:

Editor: This profile is based forward an article by Steve MacNaull that ran in The Daily Courier (Okanagan) June 29 2001

When Tracie Shandro, a CA with MacKay LLP in Kelowna, filled in for a colleague onward maternity leave (Susanne Dumaresq, CA) to participate in the Junior Achievement program this year, she had no idea she'd close up winning their Business offer of the Year award. unless that's exactly what happened.

In Kelowna, 90 proffers from the business community offered to teach approximately 2,000 scholars from grades 8-12 during the train year.

Tracie participated in brace programs: a one-day workshop for grade 9 from all from one side of to the other Kelowna entitled "The Economics of Staying in School" and a six-week "Business Game" for grades 10 and 11 at Okanagan Mission Secondary exercise This year marked the first time that JA ran the Business Game in Kelowna, making Tracie the first participant from her firm.

She says she was eager to give back using material in this way connected to her own professional work. "I think it's really important to help kids understand the variety of options expand to them," she says, "and for members of the business community to besufficient for as a connectionpeople they can contact who give an account of different parts of the spectrum"

The Business Game furnishs a crash course in entrepreneurialism. The class was divided into teams, each taking a proceeds from its inception through to its marketing. Trade says she witnessed the students' increasing involvement as they became more invested in their products' succes

The Economics of Staying in instruct aims to teach kids the value of staying in exercise Trade forewent a lecture, opting instead for an interactive approach. Using cases filled with monopoly money, she showed close examiners the disparity between the earnings of the average high place of education dropout and a surgeon. As they took wealth out to pay for fracture groceries, and other items, scholars gained a quick appreciation of to what degree far the dollar has to reach for those who've dropped abroad of school. "If I could give just single in kind kid a better sense of what it means to contend financially," she offers, "it would be worth it. Too many kids have no real universal of the value of money"

Trade acquired a certain quantity of of her own business savvy early forward from parents who owned their hold businesses. "I really admire them," she says, citing them as her principally important mentors. "It was extremely valuable growing up to witness the two their troubles and successes and to diocese the employers' side of things."

She cites MacKay LLP as another colossal source of mentoring and support. She started with the firm as a co-op close examiner and became a CA in 1998 "I've exhausted eight years with the firm," she says, "and I can't imagine working anywhere else" She's generally "learning a bit of everything" in Business and Accounting/ Client Services.

Her way to the CA profession was a circuitous single in kind After high school, she contemplated a career in law, taking a work at jobs as a receptionist with a law firm to finish a feel for daily operations. "They'd give me small accounting jobs" she recalls, "and I rest that I really enjoyed them. That's in what way I became interested in accounting."

She take downed the Co-op program at Okanagan college edifice [i]or[/i] building and took the Business Administration program's Accounting Option. From there, she followed the mature scholar route in order to obtain her designation without having to propel to Vancouver.

Given her admit roundabout discovery of the CA profession, she has a hardly any suggestions for recruiting. "I think it's really important for the ICABC to reach disclosed to the regions outside of the Lower Mainland." She also thinks it's important to transport the wide range of career options interpret to CAs.

In spells of her future, Tracie says she may fall of the curtain up running her own business, perhaps in the Okanagan's tourism/ hospitality-based industries. yet she's quick to add: "For now, I'm still discovering what avenues to explore."

Copyright Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia Sep 2001

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