Iowa Ledger (2019) - Tippie College of Business

#52
RANKING IN THE
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Slykhuis with his wife and two oldest children at an Iowa football game.
Today, Slykhuis is a major
in the Army and still serving
on active duty.
But he also graduated in May 2019
with a Master of Accountancy (MAc)
from the UI Department of Accounting.
He started to think about a different
position as the stress of flying in and
out of combat zones began to take its
toll. The 11-year veteran participated
in a training program that led him
to his current one-year assignment
at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio
where he is completing a health service
comptroller internship.
“My wife and I have four kids now,
and that shaped part of my decision,”
says the Cedar Falls, Iowa, native.
“The Army’s been good to us and I
wasn’t looking to leave, but I was
looking forward to a more predictable
schedule. And I wouldn’t be completely
honest if I didn’t say that accounting
is safer,” he says.
Slykhuis says a career in the Army
was never in his plans, even after he
enlisted. The Iraq War was at its
peak when he attended Iowa State
University as an undergraduate, and
he says he felt the need to do something
to serve his country, so he signed up
for ROTC his sophomore year. He
wanted to see what Army life was
like, so he went on active duty after
graduating in 2007. He wanted to save
lives, so he trained as a medic platoon
leader until an opportunity came to
learn to fly helicopters and he became
an air evacuation pilot.
Slykhuis served two deployments
in Afghanistan, from July 2010 to July
2011, and again from March to October
2014. He flew about 35 missions on
his first deployment and fewer than
that during his second, which was
shorter and followed the draw-down
of troops from Afghanistan.
After two deployments, he says he
began to wonder if it was time to do
something different, something more
predictable. He had always been
interested in finance and numbers.
Maybe his future was there.
So he called Tom Carroll, professor
of instruction in accounting and
director of the MAc program in the
Tippie College of Business back home
in Iowa. He said he was interested in
becoming an accountant and wondered
if his background made him a good
candidate for the MAc program.
“He told me he’d already taken one
accounting class, and I told him,
‘Maybe you ought to take that second
accounting class and see if you really
like it,’” says Carroll, who was Slykhuis’
academic advisor.
“I thought it was interesting that this
guy wanted to go from a being Black
Hawk pilot to an administrator at Army
hospitals because those are two very
different skill sets.”
Slykhuis stood out in class. He’s 10 years
older than most of his classmates, who
enrolled immediately after receiving
their undergraduate degrees. He’s had
more life-and-death experiences than
most of them combined. His lack of an
undergraduate degree in accounting
also set him apart. But Carroll says
Slykhuis’ varied life experience and
wisdom benefited his classmates.
“He got along with everybody, and he
was attuned to working with young
people and helping them along,” Carroll
says. “It’s a big advantage to have
students with different backgrounds in
our program, and he really helped with
that. He knew how to solve a problem
with whatever you have, to make do
with what you’ve got, and that sets an
important example for other students.”
Slykhuis also has the gift of perspective.
“He was a mechanical engineering
student at Iowa State, so he has no
problem handling the rigor, and after
seeing what he’s seen in Afghanistan,
a difficult accounting problem isn’t
very serious,” Carroll says.
16 IOWA LEDGER 2019