Saving Money, Saving Lives: New York Auditor Goes Full Circle

By Jay Dismukes

At 3 a.m. the night before Glenn E. Albin did an interview for The Trusted Professional, he helped treat a woman who had fallen asleep at the wheel and wrecked her car. Fortunately, the woman received only minor injuries and Albin, who arrived at our offices bright and early the next morning, appeared unfazed.

Of course, why would he be? A New York state–certified paramedic, Albin has been handling calls like that one and much worse for over 20 years now. But here’s the catch: Helping save lives isn’t even his full-time job. A former employee of the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Albin is a CPA with the New York State Office of Mental Health, Bureau of Investigation and Audit.

To understand why Albin, who is married with a 10-year-old son and two daughters, eight and six years old, would work over 30 hours a week as a paramedic for Rockland County, is to go back a ways.

“I believe, as we all do, that we have some social responsibility. You have to put something back into society,” said Albin, treasurer of the New York State Society of CPAs Rockland Chapter. “That’s just my middle-class upbringing and belief.”

Albin took this personal philosophy to heart even as a young man. While attending SUNY Pottsdam, he belonged to a service-oriented fraternity that helped out in the community, doing things like holding dances for patients at a mental hospital. And it was through the fraternity that Albin became involved with a family whose kids have multiple sclerosis. He still stays in touch with them.

In May of 1978, Albin graduated from SUNY Pottsdam with a degree in political science. After briefly testing the job market waters, Albin decided it might be prudent to return to school and get his BS in accounting, which he did one year later from Clarkson University, also in Pottsdam.

Albin began his accounting career with a small CPA firm in Manhattan and soon moved onto the accounting department of Holland America Cruises, where he learned a thing or two about European accounting principles.

Though he probably could have accrued a lifetime of free cruises, Albin left the shipping and passenger line in May of 1981 and went to work for the state tax department, where he stayed for 20 years auditing Fortune 500 companies, until the job opportunity with the State Office of Mental Health came along.

As it turns out, the move to the tax department was a particularly fortuitous one. Albin’s supervisors were encouraging of his efforts to become a paramedic and the state afforded him enough time off so that he could complete his training, which he did in 1984, and which usually occurred at night with on-call duties on the weekends. Of course, that’s not the only fortuitous move Albin has made—he met his wife, Kathleen, at a party for members of the Ambulance Corp., which he joined in August of 1981.

Though the accounting profession and the medical field don’t exactly go hand in hand, Albin, a Tappan, N.Y., resident, may well have the best take on his dual career.

“As a tax auditor, I figured I was generating revenue which allowed the state government to provide EMS services to the constituents of New York. That’s how I always justified being the ‘bad’ tax auditor,” Albin jokingly says.

Albin is trained at the highest level that New York state has for its paramedics, teaching emergency medical technician (EMT) courses—something he was inspired to do by his own teachers—and supervising EMTs when they are on call. Every Monday night from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and every other Saturday night from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., he’s on duty for the South Orangetown Ambulance Corp., a volunteer service. On Friday nights and Sunday days, he works two paid 12-hour shifts for Rockland Paramedic Services.

“I get some psychological income from it,” says Albin of his paramedic duties that allow him to help people who helped him growing up. “I look at it as a full-circle type of thing.”

In Albin’s case at least, the full-circle concept seems especially true.

While traveling by subway to Brooklyn last year, Albin’s train was stopped at West Fourth St. in Manhattan after planes had struck both towers of the World Trade Center. Though Albin, like the rest of the nation, was momentarily stunned, he managed to make it to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where years earlier he had received some EMS training, and volunteered his services.

With friends and close family members who are firefighters and policeman and numerous tax department colleagues who worked in the World Trade Center, Albin knew that many victims would be taken to St. Vincent’s. In the event that anyone he knew was sent there, he wanted to make sure they would see a friendly face. While at the hospital, Albin also helped set up a decontamination station that treated rescue workers who had been down at Ground Zero.

Sadly, Albin knew many of 40 tax department employees who died as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Though it would seem that his jobs as a CPA and paramedic would occupy his entire day, Albin takes the time to aspire to what he believes is an even more important position, that of a good role model to his children.

“You really need to keep focused and centered on your family,” he said. “I can see no bigger job than being a parent.”
While he admits his life is a “balancing act,” Albin believes any professional can be actively involved with extracurricular activities and outside interests as long as they are good time managers. He also recommends that young professionals who are setting goals for themselves outside of the workplace, clearly inform their employers of their pursuits and make certain that the company’s needs are still accounted for.