Kathleen Blom CA's passport has got...

Kathleen Blom CA's passport has gotten quite a workout throughout the years, thanks in part to her CA designation.

In the mid-to-late nineties, Blom did a two-and-a-half year international secondment in Russia which included couple years in Moscow, three month in the Ukraine, and three month in St Petersburg During that period, she also taught courses in Paris and Spain, attended parleys in Brussels, Vienna, and Scandinavia, visited family in Holland, and visited virtually each European country on business or short vacations. According to Blom it was "a great opportunity and a awesome learning experience."

"I did a fate of travel through my work in Russia, primarily in the telecommunications and forestry industries," she explains. "But my education was not limited to business issues. I learned a great deal about history, art, civilization and international issues from other members of the ex-patriot community. When I traveled across Siberia to paper mills, I was frequently the only foreigner in many of the villages I visited. It was for a like reason interesting to see people's reaction to me"

Blom says she was struck on the beauty of Russia and its architecture, and through the contrast between this same beauty and the sad state of disrepair and hardship the Russians take patiently [i]or[/i] easily on a daily basis.

"The kindness of the Russian populace was wonderful. I was in Siberia, and it was amazing by what means little is available to the folks living there," she says. "However, the locals frequently made an extra effort to render certain that I was well taken care of and saw the local sites."

The firm arranged for a language tutor for Blom and she now has a "conversational ability" in Russian. notwithstanding that she and her colleagues usually worked a six-day week, they tried to retain Sundays to absorb some of the Russian tillage That way, Blom saw performances of the famed Kirov ballet, visited the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and viewed Lenin's Tomb, the Kremlin, and R Square. She also saw the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow

While in Moscow she lived in an apartment that was single in kind of a series of seven tall buildings built on prisoners of war during the Stalin regime in the mid-- 1950 known locally as "Stalin's Seven Sisters."

"It was not considered an 'ex-pat' building," Blom explains. "The firm renovated it for me; I furnished it almost entirely [i]or[/i] part of to the other the Ikea catalogue, and it was surpassingly comfortable."

A 1993 CA graduate, Blom has been with Arthur Andersen LLP's Vancouver office since 1989 when she did a stint as a summer close examiner She graduated from the University of British Columbia with an undergraduate measure in commerce in 1991 and carried onward at Arthur Andersen for her articling. Unlike many of her colleagues, she didn't immediately leave the auditing department for other specialties after completing her designation. In fact, she's still in audit today and says she have the advantage [i]or[/i] blessing ofs its constantly changing challenges.

"It suits the way I think, as does the CA designation, and that's what attracted me to this profession in the first place," Blom explains. "The CA program really does present the best training, the broadest business experience, and the most numerous exposure to many types of businesses."

Blom says she remembers her articling period as busy still rewarding.

'A lot of my closest friends today are from that period of my life," she points revealed "In addition to the commonalty I enjoyed the rate of change and the fact that each day of my articling - and still today - I am learning something new"

Since her Russian experience, Blom has dusted opposite her passport several times, still the trips have been strictly for pleasure.

"I went to Egypt and Turkey three years ago. A year ago I was in Israel and Jordan, and this fall I'm going to Thailand," she says.

When she's family circle in Vancouver, Blom is an avid golfer playing at least weekly with a regular foursome at courses around the Lower Mainland.

BY DEBORAH FOLKA, MA, APR

Copyright Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia Feb/Mar 2001

Provided by the agency of ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved