Bill Lever:  

Life Ok, here goes with the confessions of a young man who has become a reasonably happy middle-aged one. Leaving high school, I went to LBCC. Probably few will appreciate that I enjoyed economics, primarily as a way to understand one aspect of human behaviour (I can see those eyeballs rolling!! and hear those groans!!) My favorite weekly read, "The Economist", is really a great newspaper (on all sorts of subjects) and I recommend it. Economist readers recognize each other...... I caught the flying bug and got my pilot's license --- and a job pumping gas at Long Beach Airport. I made $3 an hour for 8 hours and then took a $25 flying lesson (literally a dollar poorer at the end of the day!) Since Cessna and Piper airplanes weren't exciting enough, I joined the Marine Corps to fly theirs. I went to platoon leadership basic training at Quantico, VA for the summer of 1976. That fall, while studying business at USC (with my newly very close-cropped hair cut - rather unusual in those days) I decided to become a CPA rather than a second lieutenant. (The FIVE-year commitment seemed SO LONG to me at age 22! - but in retrospect, .... well... it's Robert Frost's "Road Not Taken".) The CPA career is not explainable to most, but suffice it to say, it offers many insights and opportunities to learn and to give key advice... I realize one of my desires has always been to be where I can make a difference... (and to be off when I can't). I was with the "Young" of what is now Ernst & Young, one of the big accounting fi...Expand for more