THE NINETIES
During
1990-91 "Cookie" Laughlin prodded us into digging out our favorite recipes and
we published the Dallas AGA Chapter Cookbook, which sold well and raised funds
for the chapter. The first speaker that
year was Jack Adair, the Resolution Trust Inspector General, who briefed us on
the "Savings and Loan Crisis, Part II."
Several members would join Mr. Adair as RTC auditors in 1991. We also heard about "Auditing the War on
Drugs Overseas" in October 1990 and about "Managing Players Salaries" from Jack
Dixon (Treasurer of the Dallas Cowboys) in December. In January 1991, the U. S. Attorney for the Northern District of
Texas, Marvin Collins, addressed the group on "Simplifying Technical Financial
Language" and in February we earned four hours of CPE on "Litigation Support
and Expert Witness" from Lewis Crain, CPA.
Linda
J. Libician kicked off her term as president with Jan Hart, the Dallas City
Manager, who discussed "Problems Facing the City of Dallas" in September 1991. John
McMichael vice-president for business operations for the Texas Rangers spoke
about "Financing a Major League Baseball Team" in December 1991. The next month, Professor Michael Granoff of
the University of Texas at Austin's accounting department discussed "The Governmental
Budget Process - the Great American Fraud."
On January 15, 1992, Smith Blair Jr. died in Alexandria, VA at the age
of 78 of a heart attack. He was chapter
president in 1961-62 while employed as GAO's regional manager. When he retired, Smith was GAO's director of
congressional relations. Smith had a
law degree from Washington College of Law and had started his government
service in 1944 as an FBI special agent before joining the GAO. Arch Rounsaville, who was president in
1958-59, died April 16, 1992 at age 87
More
than 800 attended the Professional Development Conference, which returned to
Dallas on June 22-24, 1992. The PDC was
co-hosted by the Dallas and Fort Worth chapters under the leadership of Janice
LeRoy and Steve Wilson. The National
President, Clyde Jeffcoat (a native Texan), made his grand entrance wearing a
10-gallon Stetson hat and riding a longhorn steer into the grand ballroom at
the Anatole Hotel. The AGA Topics
reported that the PDC was in a class by itself. Cookie Laughlin orchestrated a reunion during the PDC of about 25
people who had served in Vietnam. Both Dallas and Fort Worth contributed $2,000
each to AGA National to help retire the mortgage on the headquarters building in
Alexandria.
In
March of 1993, in a joint meeting at the Army and Air Force Exchange Officer's
Open Mess with the American Society of Military Comptrollers, Louis Thompson,
with the Comptroller of the Currency, briefed us on "Accounting and Bank
Regulations." In May that year, Julian
De La Rosa, former Inspector General of the Department of Labor, gave us his perspective
"From the IG's View-the Role of Auditing in the National Performance Review." Air Force Major Church and Sergeant Bradley
spoke on "Base Closures in Texas" under the first such round of closings in
September 1993. While Carswell AFB was
closed it was reopened under a later round as a Joint Reserve Base under the
Navy. Also in 1993-94, we heard about
"Community Reinvestment in Dallas" from the Dallas Federal Reserve, "Community
Investment in South Dallas" from Dallas Councilman Don Hicks, "The Myth of Free
Trade" from an SMU professor, "Tax Issues, the Liberal Perspective" and about
"Financing World Cup Soccer" from David Childs, the Dallas County Tax Assessor
(Remember those World Cup Games at the Cotton Bowl?).
In
1994, Dallas supported the new professional designation of Certified Government
Financial Manager, and the chapter made training material available for those
studying for the exam. Claude Y. (Cy)
Parker (president in 1966-67) died on April 15, 1994 at age 85. Cy was a native of Virginia and a Georgia
Tech graduate who had lived in Dallas for 40 years. In April of 1995, Mary Rodriguez may have given many of us our
first glimpse of the impending doom of the Y2K crisis in her remarks on the
"IRS and Its Compliance 2000 Initiative."
We
rose to new highs at the top of the Dallas skyline beginning in January 1996 by
moving regular luncheon meetings and training sessions to the City Club on the
69th floor of the Bank of America Building. The City Club has been a hit with the
membership and continues as our current "home". On Patriot's Day (April 19) in 1996, Grant Porter, gave us "A Day
of Fraud" seminar with several presenters for eight hours of CPE. Linda Kotkin, a consultant, was able to tell
us about the ways to "Finding the Time to Do It All" that same day (hopefully,
she was not talking about "Fraud").
Grant also spearheaded more Dallas participation in the Junkyard Dog
Golf Tournament. We owe that to President
Reagan who had fired all the IG's in 1981because he wanted new ones who were as
mean as "junk-yard" dogs.
In
September of 1996, we got off to a good start as we heard from Robert Melton,
the Dallas City Auditor, on the "Role of the Local Government Auditor." In October 1996, we learned of "The Concord
Coalition's Views on the Federal Budget." In November, we were afraid to drive
home after Special Agent Scott Donavan of the Secret Service warned us that we
all needed to be aware of "Staged Accidents and the Russian Mafia" and (if that
was not enough to worry about) FBI Special Agent Kirt Hodges gave us a run-down
on "Health Care Fraud" in January 1997.
To add insult to in injury, in a joint meeting in January 1997 with the
Certified Fraud Examiner's Detective Haines from the Dallas Police Bunco/Fraud
unit spoke to us about all the Gypsy scams to be aware of. April of 1997 saw us getting back to
"Paperless Audits: The Way of the Future" as seen by the GAO. Robert F. Langlinais, chapter president in
1976-77, died October 17, 1997 at the age of 54. After leaving GAO he had become vice-president and general
auditor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in 1985. Kimberly Walker led us to another Gold
Chapter award in 1998 and started a tradition of passing along the gavel at the
May awards luncheon.
In
January of 1998, Dr. Adolf Enthoven, University of Texas at Dallas professor
accounting and long-time Dallas member, gave us insight on "Governmental and
Taxation Developments in the Former Soviet Union". In October 1999, Jim Vaules (executive vice-president of the
National Fraud Center) gave an excellent presentation on "Using Public Source
Data to Support the Fraud Investigation Process."
In
the Nineties, the chapter continued support for the U.S Marine Corp Toys for
Tots program and collected donations of canned and dry food for the North Texas
Food Bank, as well as passing along our old cell phones to a local Women's
Shelter and others who could use them.
