Alumni & Friends

Mark R. Bierley is Chief Executive Officer of Learning Care Group, the second-largest for-profit early education and care provider in North America. Learning Care Group operates more than 900 schools in 36 states, the District of Columbia and internationally. As CEO, Bierley is responsible for all aspects of the company’s strategy, leadership and operations. Mark’s career encompasses more than 30 years of executive financial and operations leadership experience. Before joining Learning Care Group, Mark served as CFO and Senior Vice President of The Pantry Inc., one of the largest independently operated convenience store chains in the U.S.  Previously, he held a variety of leadership positions at Borders Inc., including Executive Vice President, CFO and COO.  His experience also encompasses roles in the financial departments at Dunham’s Sporting Goods and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Mark has a B.A. in Accounting from Michigan State University and an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan. He is a Certified Public Accountant.

Julie Bogas is an advisory partner with more than 18 years of experience serving consumer and industrial products, automotive and retail clients. She is focused on helping her clients undertake ambitious programs to successfully transform their finance, IT, sustainability, risk and compliance functions. Her experience includes process and controls improvement, program design and implementation, and the program management office. Bogas also serves as a Diversity Partner Champion within advisory and leads the Women’s Inclusion Network for PwC’s Detroit office. She is a CPA and received her B.A. in accounting and M.S. in accounting information systems from Michigan State University.

Pete Colasanti received his bachelor’s and master’s in Accounting as well as a minor in Economics at Michigan State University. Since graduating from MSU, Pete has continued his quest as a life-long learner by becoming a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), a Certified Managerial Accountant (CMA), a Professional Project Manager (PMP) and has also completed a Business Analytics executive degree program through Indiana University.

Pete has spent his professional career working at Grant Thornton. He is currently a Strategy Consultant, who comes with two years of experience in public accounting and financial due diligence. As a consultant, Pete has focused on Customer, Brand, and Corporate Growth engagements primarily within the technology industry. Pete has leveraged his analytical skillset to perform market analyses used in global growth strategies, optimize marketing campaigns and strategies against evolving customer needs, and drive organizational change management initiatives to better align with sales motions.

Mike is a tax partner in the Chicago practice office of BDO USA.  He began his career with BDO in 2004 and has spent his career representing closely-held businesses and wealthy families in a variety of tax matters.  Today he splits his time between BDO’s Private Client Services group, where he assists family offices in understanding the tax implications of choices related to investment, philanthropy, and succession, and BDO’s Core Tax Services group, where he assists closely-held businesses in making tax-informed business decisions.  He is versed in tax issues germane to partnerships, S corporations, individuals, and trusts, and serves clients in industries such as technology, manufacturing & distribution, and healthcare.  Internally, he is a leader in firm recruiting and people development efforts.

Mike earned a BA in Accounting from Michigan State University (’04) and an MS in Taxation from Grand Valley State University (’07). He holds membership with the Illinois CPA Society and the Michigan Association of CPAs. He is active in the Chicago non-profit community and currently serves as vice-chair of the Chicago Literacy Alliance, an organization focused on improving the functional literacy of Chicagoland residents. Mike lives with his wife Alexandra, and their dog, Penny Lane, in Logan Square.

Paul is a partner with Plante Moran.  He has more than 20 years of experience providing assurance, tax, and other business consulting services to closely held middle market companies.  Paul lead’s Plante Moran’s national food & beverage processor and distribution industry practice. He is known for introducing clients to opportunities that expose them to the full power of the firm. Clients enjoy Paul’s pragmatic approach to client service and the ideas he generates that extend well beyond traditional assurance and tax compliance work.  Which, in turn, creates new opportunities for client growth and staff development. He also has extensive past experience in the firm’s higher education practice, where he served as an assurance partner to various college and university clients for 10 years.

Paul has spoken at conferences for the Michigan ACG chapter and the Capital Roundtable in New York on issues impacting private equity-owned businesses. As a CPA, Paul is a member of the AICPA and the Michigan Association of CPA’s, and he serves as an advisory board member for 100 Businesses Who Care.

Paul earned his BA in Accounting Michigan State University in 1997.  He is actively involved with Plante Moran’s MSU recruiting team and enjoys providing guidance to MSU business students as they launch their professional careers.  While attending MSU, Paul served as a teaching assistant for ACC 201.

Annie has a Ph.D. in accounting from MSU (and her daughter is a recent Spartan accounting grad), an M.S. from George Mason University and a B.B.A. from the University of Notre Dame. Prior to her doctoral program, she was the manager of corporate financial reporting and a senior internal auditor for Gannett Co., Inc. in Washington, DC; an analyst for The Hearst Corporation in New York; and an auditor with Deloitte, Haskins & Sells in New York. Annie was also on the faculties at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and The American University.

Annie teaches courses in management accounting. She’s made several presentations on innovations in accounting education and won several awards for her teaching, including one as a graduate student at Michigan State. Her research examines how performance measurement and control systems can be designed to influence and facilitate effective and efficient decision-making within organizations, and it has been published in top research and practitioner journals in accounting, finance, and neuroscience.

Annie is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive) and a Chartered Global Management Accountant, and is a member of several accounting and neuroscience academic and practitioner associations. She has also served as President and Secretary/Treasurer of the Management Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association.

Dave has been the Chief Financial Officer of United Road Services since 2017 overseeing the finance, treasury, payroll and administration functions.  United Road Services is the industry leader in vehicle and heavy-haul transportation services with a footprint that reaches across 49 states and headquartered in Plymouth, MI.  During his tenure he has overseen multiple accretive acquisitions enhancing the value of the organization, led flawless integrations while implementing numerous cost reduction initiatives.

Prior to joining United Road Services, he held various executive roles with Metaldyne Performance Group, a global Tier 1 automotive supplier.  Dave’s extensive finance experience includes oversight of all financial operations, financial planning and analysis, corporate divestitures and acquisitions, strategic planning and compliance.  His experience also includes several years with Arthur Andersen LLP in the Assurance and Business Advisory group providing financial statement audit services to clients in the manufacturing space.  Dave received his B.A. in accounting from Michigan State University.

Jeffrey A. Hakala is Chief Executive Officer and co-Chief Investment Officer of Clarkston Capital Partners, LLC, an investment management firm with offices in Rochester and Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Jeff has over 20 years of experience in portfolio investment management and public accounting. Prior to co-founding Clarkston Capital Partners in 2007, Jeff served as a portfolio manager for Seger-Elvekrog, Inc. and Investment Counsel, Inc.  He served as a member of the Audit and Advisory Services Group of Arthur Andersen, LLP prior to his roles in portfolio management.  In addition, Jeff has held other roles as an associate adjunct professor for studies in financial statement analysis and as a seminar leader.

Jeff is a member of the Board of Directors of Conifer Holdings, Inc. and serves as a member of the Board and a member of the Audit Committee of Waterford Bancorp, Inc. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Business Administration from Michigan State University and is both a Charted Financial Analyst and a registered Certified Public Accountant.

Brad Hehl is the U.S. Central Region Automotive Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) leader and has more than 19 years of experience at EY, with approximately 15 years of experience in the TAS practice. Brad is viewed as one of EY’s automotive industry transaction leaders and works closely with the Global Automotive Center. He has significant transaction experience with automotive suppliers, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), off/on-highway heavy truck components, aftermarket products and other manufacturing or assembly components. He has led numerous buy-side due diligence engagements, including complex international/cross-border acquisitions, carve-out transactions and automotive technology/software businesses.

Hehl has presented at industry events regarding automotive merger and acquisition trends, cross-border transactions and preparing business for divestitures. He has a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University. He is a CPA and a member of the AICPA, as well as a board member and treasurer for VIP Mentoring.

Alicia Janisch is a Deloitte Tax partner with more than 13 years of experience serving clients in the health care industry. Her main focus is providing advice and expertise to tax-exempt health care provider organizations on many issues including executive compensation, corporate structuring and joint ventures, intermediate sanctions, unrelated business income tax, tax planning, ASC740, and hospital community benefit and charity care. She also has extensive experience with mergers and acquisitions, tax due diligence and large-scale tax compliance engagements for health systems. She leads Deloitte Tax’s talent efforts for the health care provider tax practice nationwide.

Janisch graduated in 2003 from Michigan State University with a B.A. and an M.S. in accounting. She is a CPA and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and of the Health Care Task Force of the Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants. She is a board member and director at large for the Grosse Pointe

Pat Mahoney is a tax partner with PwC’s national specialty tax services group in Detroit, Michigan, where he leads the Midwest specialty tax services practice. Pat primarily focuses on serving clients across the Midwest related to research tax benefits and fixed asset planning and automation. In this capacity, he represents clients across a broad range of industries, including automotive, aerospace and defense, technology, financial services, retail and industrial products.

As PwC leader, Mahoney is passionate about organizational behavior and engendering employee engagement. He worked for an extended period in a PwC think tank, identifying obstacles to and developing solutions for improving employee engagement at PwC. He is a CPA licensed in Michigan and received his B.A. and M.S. in professional accounting from Michigan State University in 2002.

Katie is a Restructuring and Turnaround Associate in Detroit at Alvarez & Marsal, a leading global professional services firm. She helps clients navigate through the restructuring process and develop solutions to preserve and create value.

She has previously held positions as an auditor of privately held companies and as assistant controller of an automotive supplier before entering the restructuring consulting world.

She is a CPA and a Certified Fraud Examiner. Katie is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants (MICPA), the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), and Turnaround Management Association (TMA). She is very active in TMA Detroit, where she serves as a board member and chair of the Network of Women committee. She also serves as a committee member for the TMA Global Network of Women.

Growing up in East Lansing, Katie is a lifelong Spartan. She is currently in MSU’s Executive MBA program and serves as a class representative. She earned her MS in Accounting from MSU in 2015.

Mike Patterson is an assurance partner with EY and has 16 years of experience serving both public and privately-held companies and has a wide range of experience serving advanced manufacturing and mobility companies. He has advised companies on the implementation of new accounting standards and internal control initiatives, and assisted companies with SEC and other regulatory filings and coordinated multi-location audit procedures. Previously, Mike served as EY’s Advanced Manufacturing and Mobility Assurance sector resident working closely with EY’s audit teams on accounting and regulatory matters. Mike also spent two years in EY’s Turin, Italy office where he worked with a number of Foreign Private Issuer audit engagements on implementing SOX 404, and complex technical accounting issues.

Mike is involved with EY’s recruiting efforts and enjoys helping students make the transition from the classroom to their professional careers. Mike graduated in 2004 from Michigan State University with a B.A. and an M.S. in Accounting. He is a CPA and a member of the AICPA.

Kristen Rzeszutek-Rohloff is a manager in the global technical accounting group at General Motors focused on technical accounting research for complex contracts, implementation of new accounting standards and drafting of FASB comment letters on occasion. Recently, she has spent most of her time on the new revenue recognition and leasing standard global implementation projects, and is actively involved in the Financial Executives International Committee on Corporate Reporting, representing GM at the Lease Working Group sessions. In addition, Rzeszutek-Rohloff also supports GM’s campus and experienced hire recruiting efforts.

Prior to her role in global technical accounting, she was a senior analyst in treasury accounting responsible for GM’s global debt portfolio, review of significant transactions and treasury management system implementation. Before joining General Motors, Rzeszutek-Rohloff was a PwC senior assurance associate in the Detroit office servicing primarily public clients in the utilities, professional services and automotive industries. Kristen holds both a B.A. and M.S. in accounting from MSU and is a licensed CPA.

Ryan Setter is currently the Houston Operations Cost Leader, supporting Dow’s Houston Hub sites for any accounting or finance related matters. In addition Ryan also leads a team of 8 manufacturing cost accountants who support our assets in the Gulf Coast.

Ryan has held several different positions at Dow since he joined in June 2011.  He hired into the CPTC, after interning in the Cost Accounting organization in the summer of 2010. After 1 ½ years in the CPTC Ryan joined the Cost Accounting NEA Implementation team. During this time Ryan worked with a global team to implement our current SAP ECC system. In winter of 2015, Ryan moved to Texas to support the Hydrocarbons business at the Texas Operations site. While in Texas, he also was involved in the Gulfstream projects and the implementation of the new PDH plant. He was then selected to the CEO Exchange program and relocated to Mumbai, India for 6 months to assume the role of Credit Analyst for multiple Dow Businesses. Upon completion of the program Ryan moved back to Midland to and joined the finance reporting, planning & analysis team supporting Finance reporting and estimates.

Ryan and his wife enjoy many outdoor activities including camping, fishing, hiking, and skiing. In addition he likes to spend his free time playing basketball, football, and softball. Ryan earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Accounting from Michigan State University.

Rick Strohmaier is a partner and Midwest region state and local tax (SALT) leader based in Chicago. He has more than 15 years of experience working with public and private companies in retail, professional services, technology, pharmacy benefit management, manufacturing and distribution. Strohmaier specializes in state income and franchise taxes. He is a frequent speaker at tax conferences. Rick earned his bachelor’s degree at Michigan State University and a master’s degree at Northern Illinois University. He is a CPA in Illinois and a member of the AICPA; he serves on the Illinois CPA Society SALT Content Advisory Group and SALT Committee, the Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois Income/Franchise Tax and Fall Conference Committees and the Chicago Tax Club SALT Committee.

Scott is an assurance and advisory partner with Deloitte based out of Chicago, Illinois. His specializations include being the Canadian manufacturing industry leader, and National Service Offering Leader – Technology Enabled Solutions, focusing on digital transformation utilizing robotics process automations

and advanced analytics. He previously led the Chicago accounting and reporting advisory services involving complex accounting, new accounting standards implementation and life event transactions. Scott participates in the Office of Chief Executive Officer Partner Development Program, served on the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Global Service Innovation Board, and has extensive experience assisting Foreign Private Issuers with identifying differences between local accounting requirements and U.S. GAAP and drafting disclosure as part of annual SEC reporting requirements. Before his time in Chicago, Scott served as a partner out of Toronto, Canada and Midland, Michigan.  As a manager, he was located in Detroit and spent two years in Paris, France.

Scott has a B.A. in Accounting from Michigan State University, he is a CPA and holds membership in the Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He has been active in the Midland, Michigan United Way serving as president, member of the executive committee, and audit committee.

Korey Thomas serves as Herman Miller’s Vice President and Corporate Controller. Herman Miller is an industry leader for interior furnishings. Prior to joining Herman Miller, Korey held various accounting and finance roles of increasing responsibility at Whirlpool. He also worked at Steelcase and Plante Moran.

Korey graduated from Michigan State University with a bachelor’s degree in Accounting. He also has an MBA from University of Michigan and holds CPA and CIA designations. He is active in the community as a board member of Make-A-Wish Michigan, and the Zeeland Educational Foundation.

Wendy Trumbull is currently the Director of Finance and Budget for the Charter Township of Canton, currently the tenth largest community in the State of Michigan.  Wendy oversees the Township’s information technology and financial operations including preparation and maintenance of the Township’s $150 million annual budget, the annual financial report, centralized accounting, purchasing, and payroll.

Prior to her role with Canton Township, Wendy spent 15 years with Plante & Moran, PLLC, performing audits and consulting work for primarily non-profit and governmental clients.  Wendy graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and is a registered Certified Public Accountant.  In addition Wendy has spent time presenting financial topics to various external organizations including the Michigan Township’s Association, Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants, Municipal Employees’ Retirement System and Michigan Governmental Finance Officers Association.

Jenny Wallace is an audit partner in KPMG’s Detroit office with more than 16 years of experience providing audit and related services. She primarily serves public and privately held companies in the real estate and manufacturing industries.  Her experience includes the coordination of multi-national audits as well as assisting clients with a variety of transactions and the related accounting considerations.  Jenny has experience providing audit services to organizations in accordance with PCAOB requirements, under both US GAAP and IFRS.

Jenny graduated from the Eli Broad College of Business with a BA in Accounting in 2004. From MSU, she joined the audit practice at KPMG. Throughout her career at KPMG she has taken on several important roles within the firm, including being an instructor for the firm’s national training program and an active participant in the firm’s performance management and mentoring programs.  Jenny also serves as the partner champion for the KPMG Michigan offices Employer of Choice Council where they focus on initiatives regarding recognition and appreciation, work-life balance, coaching and mentoring and teamwork.  Jenny has also served as a quality control reviewer as part of KPMG’s quality assurance program.  In addition, she oversees and supports the efforts of each of the Inclusion and Diversity groups within the Michigan offices.

Christopher is a partner in KPMG’s Midwest Mergers & Acquisitions Tax practice and is based in the Firm’s Chicago, Illinois office. Christopher joined the practice in March 2001. He currently advises clients on the federal income tax consequences of proposed acquisition, disposition, joint venture and financing transactions. In addition, Christopher advises various clients on the tax issues associated with distressed and bankrupt debt restructurings including net operating loss limitations, consolidated return attribution reduction requirements, and discharge of indebtedness income.  Before joining the Mergers and Acquisitions Tax practice in March 2001, Christopher was a Manager in KPMG’s State and Local Tax Group where he focused on various state tax issues such as business/nonbusiness income, unitary group membership, nexus, tax base and apportionment. Christopher’s educational background includes an LL.M. in Taxation from Chicago-Kent College of Law, a J.D. from DePaul University College of Law, and a B.A. in Accounting from Michigan State University.  He is a licensed CPA in Illinois.