Originally published on December 06, 2018.
Idaho native Vince Rosdahl originally came to Southern Utah University to play basketball. In between his time on the court, starting a family, and working various jobs on and off campus he found his career path in accounting.
Working hard to support a family and receive top honors was an important part of Vince’s SUU experience. Vince learned a lot about working hard from both his accounting professors and basketball coaches.
Tim Lewis and Gary Giles, both professors of accounting, were guiding forces throughout his time at SUU. Vince credits them with encouraging their students to become their best self. One such inspiration was when Professor Lewis challenged Vince during his first semester at SUU to get straight A’s. Vince accepted the challenge and from that moment on he got straight A’s.
“That was a turning point in my life that truly allowed me to understand that striving for the best will raise someone much higher than just striving to be good,” Vince said. He graduated from SUU with a suma cum laude in his bachelor’s program and magna cum laude in the master of accountancy program.
Vince refers to SUU as the ‘Harvard of the West’.“I believe that the experience of going to SUU can prepare you as well as any university in the county, you just have to apply yourself.”
Vince is now a partner at Deloitte, a major national accounting firm. He works for several large investment management clients, primarily in the private equity space, helping them with tax structuring and compliance and reporting to their investors. In addition, he leads multiple teams in several different offices of the firm, from Fort Worth, New York, Boston, Houston and San Francisco.
His favorite part of the job is serving clients and working with the service teams.
“SUU prepared me to be a CPA with the proper balance of education of the subject as well as ethics needed in the profession and communication skills necessary to succeed in business,” said Vince. “At SUU, I learned that if I truly applied myself, that I could accomplish much more than I originally thought.”
Learn more about SUU’s Master of Accountancy program.