By Simon Eskow

A program to encourage promising minority high school students to enter the accounting profession plunged into its 16th year last month with interviews of prospective participants and the possibility of expansion to a fifth location.

Organizers of the New York State Society of CPAs’ Career Opportunities in the Accounting Profession (COAP) program began interviews at Society headquarters in mid-February for upcoming summer sessions at two of the four existing programs.

Selected students reside or commute to COAP programs at Hofstra University, Long Island University (LIU), Pace University and Westchester Community College (WCC). Talks are under way to establish a COAP program at Le Moyne College. The students hear guest speakers, visit CPA firms and receive college guidance in the week-long sessions.

While separate, independent COAP advisory boards manage their programs and tailor recruiting efforts, they all rely on NYSSCPA member contributions of time and money. An umbrella advisory committee has made extra efforts to drum up support with letters to Society leaders and some new ideas on the connection between providing opportunities to students and the health and vigor of the economy.

That has been the driving theme for Franklin Federmann, a member of the Society’s COAP Advisory Board, who believes the program has an intrinsic tie to the health of the business world in general.

“We have to have a strong economic engine, and we have to make sure that everyone participates,” Federmann said. “If we make sure that everyone gets a real opportunity to participate, they will fuel that engine. We’re trying to accomplish something very important: investing in our future and our economy. I believe COAP accomplishes this.”

Federmann recently spearheaded a letter-writing campaign to 255 of the Society’s leaders for additional support to augment the member donations, corporate donations and matching grants that keep the program running. Federmann hopes in the future to alter how the Society seeks donations by objectively demonstrating the value of the program to the profession and the economy at large.

This includes one-on-one meetings between COAP alumni and partners of big firms, starting possibly as early as this spring. There also is a project under way to track the educational and career progress of all COAP participants from as early as its inception in 1987.

Federmann said that by creating performance indicators such as the number of students who have passed through the program, what they’ve done and how much money was spent per year, members may be encouraged to donate more money, while institutions may be convinced to open their doors to similar programs.

Damon Duke, an investment accounting analyst with PricewaterhouseCoopers and a member of the Pace COAP Advisory Board, credits the program with helping him to home in on his chosen career.

“I used the program to identify what field I wanted to go into,” 1993 COAP graduate Duke said. “The program afforded me different options and showed me different opportunities. We went on a field trip to Coopers and Lybrand (as it was called at the time) and talked to auditors.”

Duke said speaking to the auditors made him want to become one. Following high school, Duke attended New York University and went on to become a CPA in 2001, while volunteering his time organizing the Pace program.

“The end result is COAP produces productive citizens,” Duke said. “And it’s a great resource for students when it’s time for them to graduate. The whole idea is to get students involved in the corporate world and inform them of the business end and accounting, and it works.”

The program has taken off in the last two years, expanding to two new campuses in July 2002: the LIU campus in Brooklyn and Westchester Community College. COAP organizers say they are working with members of the Syracuse Chapter and Le Moyne College to establish a program there.