A Soldier’s Honor
Rochester CPA Will Again Put His Life on Hold to Defend Country

By Alicia Korney, Public Relations Associate

NEW YORK—New York state CPA David Gary Young has already served one tour of duty in the battlefields of Afghanistan. Now, the Rochester practitioner is awaiting a second deployment that will send him overseas sometime this fall. The thing of it is, Young could have already retired from the New York Army National Guard, but he chose not to.

“That would be the wrong thing to do. It would be abandoning the country in its time of need. The country needs someone with my background and skills,” said Young, a member of the New York State Society of CPAs.

Along with several of his high school buddies, Young signed up for the Army National Guard 20 years ago to serve his country and help fund his college education at SUNY Brockport. When he graduated in 1989, he went into the Reserves as an officer and eventually became part of a civil affairs unit. He drills in a detachment located in Rochester that is part of the Army Reserve Information Operations Command, where his brigade is located in Adelphi, Md.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, it quickly became apparent that Young would be deployed within the following months. He and his wife, Julie, worked in those few short months to bring the files of his growing accounting firm, Young & Company CPA LLP, as up to date as possible and prepare for the peer review the practice was scheduled to undergo. He handed the reins primarily off to his father, Gary, who came on board in 1999 to assist with the business; Julie had the couple’s 18-month-old son, Benjamin, to care for.

Young was mobilized and sent to Afghanistan in January 2002, returning home just before Christmas that year. On his initial tour, Young led a small team of men, talking to village leaders through interpreters, explaining the military presence and sorting out cultural nuances. Traveling through the countryside, the team always had to keep an eye out for booby traps, ambushes and snipers—the dangerous realities that accompany an indiscriminating enemy.

His business and accounting skills actually came in handy on the remote battlefield. In one instance, he helped workers at a local airport develop a method of screening people, and then sought ways to ensure that the gathered information would be useful. On another project, he had to sort out the method being used to regulate payments to locals for their help with a variety of projects.

“That was all about putting a system in place, things that are right out of CPA 101,” Young said. “But there aren’t necessarily a lot of people who have those same skills in the Army’s structure.”

Young & Company got its start in Rochester in 1997. The firm has grown from a one-man operation to a full-service accounting and consulting firm that prepares about 750 individual returns and about 75 business returns and has a niche in the healthcare and ministry fields. Young, his father and Julie now work year-round for the firm. The company takes on another two to three employees during the busy tax season.

“It was always my dream,” Young said. “Now I want to keep growing, keep expanding. I’d like to merge with another practice, or start acquiring other practices…The trick of it now is not to let the war get in the way.”

The Youngs are working again to prepare for the deployment whenever it comes, and are thankful to have more planning time. They’re writing down action steps for a variety of scenarios, keeping compilations as current as possible and taking into account new policies, new clients and new technology since 2002.

“It’s everything from thinking about software updates to who handles the bank deposit,” Gary said.

“The challenge of it all is making your business work when you’re halfway across the world in a combat zone,” Young added. “The focus there is on the mission and keeping your men alive—not the Smith return, or whether that extension got filed.”

Gary, who previously worked in the healthcare industry, estimates that business has about doubled since his son’s first deployment. He said it’s tough to watch his son go off to war, but he is thankful that David can come home to a warm meal and the smiling faces of his family.

“Nobody likes paying taxes, nobody likes seeing their child go off to war,” Gary said. “But that’s the price of living in a free society…You’ve got to bite the bullet and do your part.”

In the wake of 9/11, clients were very understanding, Gary said, but now, with the event four years in the past, he’s hoping people will be as tolerant a second time around.

“Everyone wants that personal touch,” Gary said. “That’s why they come to a small firm in the first place.”

To prepare for Young’s departure, Gary said the firm will have a pool of experienced part-timers after tax season, and the hope is that Young and Company could again pull in additional help when needed.

“You’re always a little unsure,” Julie said. “It’s something that hangs over every single decision made in the household. It’s a big impact. I find myself asking, ‘Is this something I could do on my own?’”

The couple has been married for more than 12 years; they met when Young was in college and Julie was living near the Brockport campus. Julie later went back to college and worked for the Internal Revenue Service and KPMG. Benjamin, now 4 and already asking if he can help with returns, will start kindergarten in the fall, which should help Julie carve out the time to work in the office.

“That’s my challenge,” she says, speaking of their son. “I don’t want him to lose both his parents for a whole year, me to the business and Dave to the Army. There’s a balancing act that comes in. I need to keep him happy and secure.”

Aside from family, Young said the biggest impact his deployment will have is on bringing in new business. Looking at the numbers from 2002, he said it’s easy to see that new-client dollars hit a plateau when he was gone.

“There are challenges that come with being a small business owner,” said Young, mentioning the area’s economic struggles. “And being based in upstate New York is in itself a bit of a challenge.”

Though his salary from the Army while deployed helps out, Young said he still has the responsibility for the expenses of keeping the business running, whether it has one client or 1,000.

“I’m fortunate to have a father and a wife who are able to step up,” said Young, who intends to stay in the service as long as the Army allows him. “As long as the business and my family keep rolling along, I’d never abandon the unit and the other soldiers.”

He continued, “I don’t consider what I do a real sacrifice at all—the people that truly sacrificed are those people who have been killed or wounded. We’re fortunate to live in a country where we have so much, and we must never forget those who have given their life in service of our country.”

Young said he sees his role in the Army as helping the commander understand the culture and the human element as well as the enemy’s motivation and methods. As an example, he pointed out that many times troops have satellite photos of enemy formations and all the most up-to-date technology at their disposal, but lack the cultural awareness to understand the ramifications of their interactions with the people.

Young noted that most wars historically have been “symmetrical”—two opposing forces directly engaging one another in combat. However, the U.S. troops in Afghanistan and on the ground in Iraq today are charged with a more nebulous effort, one where they can’t always be sure of who the enemy is. Partly because of this situation, Young advises the commander on how to best leverage civil military operations and nonmilitary advantages to build trust and manage perceptions, tasks that demand an exceptional ability to understand people, their culture and their motivation.

“We must outthink the enemy,” Young said. “The mission truly is to try and win the hearts and minds of the people… There’s a human element that underlies everything we do. People and ideas are the essence of why wars are fought.”