---

Message From the President

By Thomas Boyd, Queens Chapter President

Greetings to all members and supporters of the Queens chapter. I hope those of you engaged in public accounting have recovered from a successful tax season. It is now time for us to get retooled and updated for the coming year. It is the mission of the Queens Chapter to assist you in this process.

This year will be the fourth year for the Queens Chapter. We have much to be proud of, but also a lot more to do. Ed Torres, our first president, organized the Queens Chapter out of a small group of members, and we all owe him a lot of thanks. He created a viable organization from scratch—not an easy task.

Bob Sypolt took over the reins from Ed and built upon it. He held many meetings that enabled our members to earn their CPE credits at affordable prices in Queens. During his term, the chapter reached out to high school students by holding an all-day conference on careers in accounting at St. John’s University. The chapter also did high school visitation in an effort to promote the profession. Bob also established an affiliation with the Queens Chamber of Commerce, and our members attended a networking lunch session with the Chambers’ members.

Tom Casey, last year’s president, continued these activities, and now it is my turn to build upon what has been done.

As I start my term as president, I consider myself very fortunate to have the last three presidents on our Board and active in the chapter. Torres will head up our tax committee, which will present a tax update at our annual tax conference, to be held at St. John’s University on Oct. 21.

Sypolt will be our chapter’s president-elect, and is planning several members meetings, including one on SBA loans. We hope to be able to do another networking session with the Queens Chamber of Commerce.

Casey will be the chapter’s liaison with the State Society Board, and has expressed an interest in working on an elder care committee.

It is my goal that this year the chapter will be able to involve more members in our activities. This is why you pay your dues and support the NYSSCPA. So, get involved, attend our meetings, join our committees and participate in our activities. Benefits that you can derive from such participation include:

The Chapter has planned three sessions, all to be held at the St. John’s University’s Queens Campus (see the Save These Dates box). Look for more announcements about these and many more activities in The Trusted Professional and on the chapter’s website at www.nysscpa.org by clicking on “Find Chapters” and then “Queens.”

If you live in Queens but work elsewhere, such as Manhattan, the State Society may not have you listed as a Queens member. You can get on our mailing list by notifying Lelia Dickenson, the Society’s chapter relations coordinator for all downstate chapters, at 212-719-8366 or ldickenson@nysscpa.org.

Thomas Boyd can be reached at 718-428-0956 or tmboyd38@hotmail.com.