No accounting career path is the same. Today, we bring you the story of how one accountant worked her way from a public accounting job out of college into a Controller role at the Phoenix Suns.
Mary Gilbaugh is a runner. She is 26. She has a large, framed black and white photo of Steve Prefontaine hanging from her office with the Phoenix Suns. She is their Controller.
I guess my path started the summer before my senior year of college. I interned at Deloitte and Touche. The internship process at a public accounting firm is quite a nice experience. Lots of dinners. You don’t work that hard. You get reimbursed for your mileage, so anywhere you drive you make a lot of money.
So the month before my senior year started I signed with Deloitte and Touche to start full time the following fall. When I graduated I had three months of bumming around at my parents house and getting ready for the real world.
I went to Deloitte. Worked way more than I really ever thought I’d work. Easily. I got put on one of their largest clients. So I was working twelve to fourteen hours a day. Consistently. For months. It just started to wear on me.
Then November 11th, 2004, which is a year and a bit more into my public accounting experience, a friend of mine passed away. I kinda decided that I needed to take a step back. Deloitte was nice enough to give me a three month leave of absence from work.
In that three months I did some soul searching. I started a foundation for him. (The J.P. Blecksmith Leadership Foundation provides scholarships to students from his high school.) My sister got married. I got to be the ultimate maid of honor.
Right after my sister’s wedding a cousin of mine who came to the wedding wanted me to come back to Arizona for a week. So I came out here, and he actually happened to work at UHaul. He said, “Let’s go talk to my dad, he’ll find you a job at UHaul.”
I continued to work at Deloitte and Touche for three more months to fulfill my two years of public accounting (Laughs). That’s the standard in the industry to get a CPA. Then I went to work at UHaul and did the total one eighty. I worked eight hours a day, which was a new experience.
Prior to me leaving Deloitte, when I was trying to figure out if I would move to Arizona, I signed on to job websites and kept my name in the loop. One day when I was at UHaul I got an email. I always kind of took a look at them because I like sports.
I saw the Controller for the Phoenix Suns position so I decided to throw my resume in there to see where it goes. Two weeks later I got a phone call from them. I came down here and did a couple interviews. I got called back, and was offered the position.
That’s where all the drama started. Because my family was not too thrilled about it. It was kind of interesting. Mainly because my family has major ties to UHaul. So it was really hard for me to check out after being there for only one year.
But I went against their wills, which is like, the first time for me to get away from doing what would make my parents happy. I’ve always been one of those kinds of people. I accepted the job. That’s how I got here. Just kind of jumped into it.
Note: This interview was conducted in 2007. Since the interview was conducted, Mary accepted a senior accounting job with the San Francisco 49ers before moving on to a CFO role at a reputable insurance company.