Special Agent
FBI
Kansas City, MO
Meet FBI Special Agent Bob Herndon. If you don’t recognize him, just look for the CPA strapped with a .40-caliber pistol and a pair of handcuffs dangling from his waist.
Bob is currently in charge of investigating white-collar crime for the Kansas City Field Office of the FBI. Even in high school, he knew he wanted to be an FBI agent. He also knew that the FBI looks for people who have sharpened their thinking with challenging degree programs like accounting. He figured that even if he didn’t make it as a special agent, an accounting degree was a solid foundation for his professional life.
Of course, he made it into the FBI program. And he hasn’t had a normal day since. “I’ve worked on organized crime, drugs, public corruption, foreign counterintelligence and white collar crime,” Bob says. “I even spent three years undercover, living under a different name. As a Special Agent of the FBI, I do not have a daily routine.”
One day Bob could be conducting surveillance on a dangerous subject in jeans and a t-shirt, and the next he’ll be wearing a suit and tie to a meeting with the president of a Fortune 500 company. “Being a CPA will offer you job security, financial well-being, opportunities to travel around the world, and great relationships with grounded co-workers – interesting people who like to have fun, travel, and are in a position to buy cool stuff,” Bob says.
Sound like a movie? It is. The Informant, starring Matt Damon and released in October of 2009, is about a criminal case Bob played a central role in solving.
Hobbies outside of work: Marathon runner, avid reader, head coach of his son’s baseball team