The Making of a CPA with WebCE's Jeff Goodrich, MBA, CPA, CIA

We often think of a career path as a straight line, a clear roadmap drawn in our youth that we simply need to follow. But for so many people, the journey is less like a map and more like an exploration through an uncharted forest filled with unexpected turns, dead ends, and surprising discoveries. In this blog, we’ll examine one such winding path, which suggests our true calling isn’t always a destination we choose, but one we uncover along the way.  

Sometimes, to understand a winding path, it’s best to look at the destination and work backward. Consider the destination of WebCE’s own Chief Financial Officer Jeff Goodrich, MBA, CPA, CIA. His work is analytical, forward-looking, and grounded in precision. The journey that brought him there, however, began by facing the opposite direction: looking backward, into the complex, sprawling narratives of the past. 

“I started out as a history major in college and did that for three years,” Jeff said. "My plan was to go to law school. I actually worked as a runner for a law firm when I realized I didn't want to be a lawyer because all they did was research all day in libraries and wrote papers. It was nothing like I thought it was going to be.” 

After three years, the story Jeff had been writing for his life came to an abrupt halt. He was faced with a challenge many of us encounter: the need to author a new chapter when the old one no longer makes sense. Amid the uncertainty of his future, he found an anchor in his past. 

"My grandfather was an accountant, and I would see him close his books. He had actual books, you know, ledgers he hand wrote in. He would sit at his desk working late at night and literally close the books. And so that drew my attention to that career as an option. But the more I looked into it, the more I realized it is a good career path.” 

Jeff found accounting offered many career paths and, no matter the direction, there was job security. 

"It's kind of like engineering. If you want to be an engineer, there are various types of engineer - civil, electrical, petroleum and many more. Accounting is the same way. In accounting, you can be a public accountant. You can work for a company. You can open your own business and be a certified public accountant who has customers coming in for taxes or bookkeeping,” Jeff said. “So, there's all these different options under a CPA and that's what drew my attention.” 

These options not only offered him the flexibility to pursue the work he liked but held a consistent demand that meant career stability. But it wasn’t just the practical considerations of choosing accounting as a career and the CPA as the chosen designation. The prestige of becoming a CPA was also a major draw. 

“My mentality was the CPA designation is what you need to have because it is kind of an assurance that you have met a certain level of understanding and knowledge,” Jeff said. “When people see that CPA designation, it means something to them. It's a very highly recognized designation and the cool thing is that people kind of respect that and know what it means. If you're going to be in accounting, I think it's something you should aim for and try to get. And so, I always wanted to do that. Ever since I started taking accounting classes in college and decided to switch my major from history to accounting, my plan was to get my CPA.” 

“Best-laid plans” made, Jeff graduated with a bachelor's degree in accounting and set out into the workforce only to discover a slow economy disrupting his prospects. Another roadblock in his career path. To improve his chances of competing for positions he wanted, and hopefully give the economy time to recover, he decided to get an MBA.  

“I got a master's degree in accounting because it was an internal audit concentration, and I also got an MBA at the same time,” he said. 

During his time in grad school, Jeff earned both his MBA and CIA (Certified Internal Auditor) certification, passing all three parts of the CIA exam, which allowed him to shift his focus towards his CPA. It was especially important for Jeff to earn his CPA as soon as possible because “there’s a shelf life on your knowledge.” 

 “You learn all this stuff in school that you need to know to pass the exam, but then if you delay taking it even two or three years, you start forgetting all the stuff you studied, or the stuff you studied has become obsolete and now the rules have changed, then you need to know the new stuff,” Jeff said. “My opinion is you get your CPA as soon as you come out of school because you know a lot of it already.” 

To put that theory to the test, he signed up for the then two-day CPA exam without any prep, just to see how well he could do with all he had learned so far.  

“That was part of my strategy, to sign up and just take the test to see how I did because I wanted to go sit in the test center and see what it was like and to see how I would do without studying,” he said. “I was actually encouraged by that because I was in the high 50s and low 60s on the exams just without studying. And so I was like, if I study, I can pass this.” 

After a strict 13-week study course that met 8 hours a day on Saturday alongside 40 hours of homework each week, Jeff re-took the then two-day CPA exam. 

“Back then, it was a little bit different. You had to take the entire exam all at one time. It was a 2-day exam, four parts, four hours each. So, you were taking a test for two days straight, and the amount of information you had to learn to do well on the test was very, very intimidating,” he said. “That next time I signed up for it, I went through the study course and did a lot of work and I was thrilled. I mean, one of the happiest days of an accountant's life is when they get their little letter in the mail saying they passed their CPA exam."  

“I guess it’s probably an e-mail these days.” 

CPA in hand, Jeff spent nearly two decades with Texas Instruments out of grad school. He rose to Finance Director for all China and Korea operations then Consolidations Accounting Manager, which, Jeff said, would not have been possible without his CPA. After leaving Texas Instruments, Jeff worked for four years as a Controller before rising to his first CFO role in 2016. Since 2022, Jeff has been WebCE’s CFO, where he found the ideal size company doing what he loves.   

Jeff’s journey to the C-suite wasn’t a straight line, but an accumulation of skills learned along a winding path. And the CPA wasn’t just the destination. It was the credential that synthesized all of his disparate experiences into a single, powerful story of professional expertise.