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Patrick Meier

Accounting Manager
Ulthera, Inc
Mesa, AZ

 

Maybe it’s the earrings, or the tattoo, but a lot of people tell Patrick Meier that he doesn’t look the part of a CPA.

For Patrick, that just means they’re working with an outdated understanding of CPAs. “It’s a ‘people profession,’” Patrick says. “We spend a lot of time interacting with people and developing relationships, so it helps that I’m so outgoing.”

But he wasn’t always sure he wanted to go into accounting. “When I got to college, I wasn’t just an undecided major,” he says. “I was an extremely undecided major.” But after a couple of introductory accounting classes, everything started to click. At the State University of New York at Buffalo, Patrick went on to earn a BS in accounting, and then got his MBA.

At his first job, Patrick spent a lot of his time in his client’s offices, working closely with them to help get their business in order. Only in his first year as a CPA, Patrick had already been able to interact with lots of business leaders. “I worked directly with business owners, CEOs, CFOs and presidents of local companies,” he says. “It gave me a front-row seat to the issues companies face every day.”

This experience with a multitude of companies laid the foundation for Patrick’s current role as senior accountant at Ulthera, Inc. He feels he has been able to translate the lessons learned from his public accounting clients into real world solutions at his current company.

And he’s just getting started. “When I tell people I’m a CPA, they’re usually like ‘man, you’re going to be able to write your own ticket,’” Patrick says. “And they’re right – being a CPA can open up incredible opportunities for you.”

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