Bette Williams, CPA of Austin, Texas joined us for this week’s episode of Life In Accounting: The Where Accountants Go podcast.
Paving the Way
As you will hear in the interview, Bette started in the profession in the 1950’s when the opportunities for women to enter and progress in accounting were much more limited to say the least. Bette took her initial accounting courses at Texas A&M at a time when women were not allowed to register unless they were registered with another college as well. Plus, she recounts how during her early days in public accounting it was a challenge to move up because women participating in business development activities (golf, etc) was not quite as accepted as it is in the present day.
Exam before degree
Another interesting detail of this interview for me personally was that Bette actually passed the CPA exam prior to attaining her degree. The requirements to sit for the exam were different at that time, and she actually had only completed an Associates when she originally sat for and passed the exam. It was a few years later that she actually ended up finishing her Bachelors degree at the University of Corpus Christi.
And yes, basset hounds!
Obviously we go into a good amount of detail about Bette’s career including her time at Touche Ross and then the experience of starting her own firm. But I wouldn’t have done this interview justice if I hadn’t asked about her rather successful hobby of breeding award-winning basset hounds. Bette has been to Westminster several times, and still to this day co-owns one of the leading showing basset hounds at AKC shows.
There is much, much more that I could put in this summary of the show. In fact there are many highlights that I haven’t touched on such as awards, the scholarship, and several others – way to many to include in this write-up. You’ll have to listen to the audio to get the full experience. Bette is an amazing individual.
I hope you enjoy the interview. There’s more to come…
Mark Goldman CPA
President – Where Accountants Go
www.WhereAccountantsGo.com
If you found this episode beneficial and haven’t subscribed yet, please visit https://whereaccountantsgo.com/blog/ and click on the orange “Subscribe” button in the upper right hand corner to be notified every time we post new content. Thank you!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
