• Why Accounting?  /
• Real-Life CPAs

Sherry Gabriele

CPA
Michele A. Kato & Co., LLC
Kihei, HI

 

Ask Sherry Gabriele for her favorite one-sentence quote and she gives you a paragraph. It figures – she’s always gone the extra mile. After all, this is the lady who passed the CPA exam on the first try (had to – she and her husband didn’t want to pay for a retake), became the first woman partner in the office of her multinational firm (the only woman amongst 135 Partners), started her own firm, and then decided to close it so she could move to Hawaii.

What about hobbies? Sherry likes to travel. And she doesn’t just dip a toe in those waters, either: “Some of the most interesting and beautiful places I’ve visited have been the Galapagos Islands, Haiti, Rhodes in the Greek Islands, Hungary, Tahiti, and I even navigated the Yangtze river in China.”

She’s also taken up martial arts – and gone full-speed ahead in that pursuit as well. “I have a Blackbelt in Ninpo, which was the art practiced by the Ninjas.”

Any volunteer work? Yes, and plenty of it. “I spent many years volunteering at a shelter, caring for lions, monkeys, bobcats, bears, you name it.” Nowadays she works with the Mayor of Maui to get local artwork installed on the city’s buses.

At work she specializes in Estate and Trust taxation, and goes after that with gusto. But only sometimes: “During tax season, there are a lot of hours, but the rest of the year, I go do other things.” So what’s Sherry’s advice if you’re trying to follow her lead and live life to the fullest, “packing in all the things you want to accomplish”?

Go into accounting. “I originally thought I should be an engineer, or a pharmacist, but this is the kind of math I really enjoy. I ended up taking several part-time jobs with CPA firms before I was even out of college,” she says. “This profession just teaches and amazes you so much,” she adds. Sherry ought to know.

Got questions of your own? Ask a CPA.