College of Business, Graduate Association of Business Students host AICPA president and CEO Barry Melancon

Feb. 10, 2009 -- The College of Business and the Graduate Association of Business Students (GABS) will host a luncheon Thursday, Feb. 26, at 11:30 a.m. with guest speaker Barry Melancon, president and chief executive officer of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

The luncheon will be held at the Jonesboro Country Club, and tickets are $25 per person. Advance tickets may be purchased from the dean’s office in the College of Business before Friday, Feb. 20.

Melancon has more than 25 years of experience in the accounting profession, and he directs the Institute’s operations in the New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C.; Durham, N.C.; and Lewisville, Texas areas. The AICPA is a national professional organization of more than 350,000 CPAs.

Since 1995, Melancon has led AICPA and was at the forefront of several initiatives that benefited not only CPAs, but also business owners, investors, and the public. He led the Institute in designing a computerized CPA exam, opening audit quality centers, and creating two consumer education programs.

Melancon was also a founder of the Global Accounting Alliance and is a member of the Board of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL-US) and the International Federation of Accountants. He is a member of U.S. Chamber Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness and was a member of the U.S. Department of Treasury Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession.

For more information, contact Mitchell Slepian, media relations manager, AICPA, at (212) 596-6177, or e-mail at mslepian@aicpa.org. Locally, call Dr. William Roe, associate dean of the College of Business, at (870) 972-3035 or e-mail at broe@astate.edu.   

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Caitlin Berry, intern, Office of Public Relations/University Communications, contributed to this release.