Change is in the air
Chair's Message
Eric O'Link | April/May 2025 Footnote
Editor's note: Updated March 26, 2025
When I sat down to write this first column for Footnote, I found myself thinking about change.
Change touches us in so many ways: Changes in our career or work, changes in our families, changes in health, even changes in the weather. Change can bring about wonderful circumstances, perplexing quandaries or absolute chaos. Sometimes, we feel a change even when we aren’t directly impacted by it; recent developments at the Minnesota Capitol or in Washington, D.C. may not affect your life between today and tomorrow, but it’s likely you hold strong feelings or opinions about them.
CPAs are no stranger to change — it’s been a constant in our profession for years. There’s plenty of it currently.
Some of those changes are welcome. After heaps of discussion in the past several years regarding the CPA pipeline issue, we’re seeing exciting developments. Nationwide, a movement to broaden the pathways to CPA licensure has coalesced around commonsense alternatives to the 150-credit-hour rule. Ohio was the first state to pass revamped rules to become licensed, requiring either a master’s or bachelor’s degree with an accounting concentration and one or two years of work experience, respectively, plus passing the CPA exam. The Ohio bill also provides for automatic mobility to CPAs licensed in other states. As of this writing, Virginia and Utah passed similar bills that await the signatures of their respective governors.
This legislative push began in Minnesota two years ago as a result of the MNCPA board listening to members. This year, we introduced updated bills providing routes to CPA licensure in Minnesota similar to what passed in Ohio. You can find more on the legislation on our
Broadening the Pathways to CPA licensure page. I hope these bills pass and create positive changes in our CPA pipeline.
Some changes in our profession have come at lightning speed. Think of the COVID-19 pandemic, when suddenly everyone was a remote worker, or the recent explosion in applications of artificial intelligence. Still others are omnipresent: The evolving roles of CPAs and the services we offer is one example. What about tax regulations — do they ever stay constant for long? Our clients look to us to help them navigate changes in their personal financial situations and cycles of business.
Articles in this Footnote touch on change: The aforementioned pathway legislation update; technological change that allows us to pen notes on an electronic tablet; succession planning for small CPA firms.
And, of course, it’s the time when the MNCPA board chair changes. I could not have imagined my accounting career would lead me here when I embarked on it as a second career 14 years ago. Sincere thanks to the outgoing chair, Boz Bostrom, for showing me the ropes. It’s an honor and a privilege to succeed you. I’d be remiss not to mention the MNCPA staff; their constant work behind the scenes ensures we members have a first-class state society.
We are CPAs. Change is what we do!
Eric O'Link, CPA
Chair, MNCPA board of directors
boardchair@mncpa.org
