Iowa Ledger (2019) - Tippie College of Business

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#52 RANKING IN THE U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT FOR BEST COLLEGE FOR VETERANS 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
Slykhuis with fellow soldiers during his 2010-2011 deployment. Professor Tom Carroll presenting Slykhuis with the Federation of Schools of Accountancy Achievement Award for Outstanding MAc Student in 2019. 2,260 MORE THAN VETERANS, DEPENDENTS, & ACTIVE-DUTY MEMBERS ATTEND THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA DURING ANY GIVEN TERM. Slykhuis says he was pleased to be back in Iowa for two years and close to home, but the tragedy he saw touch so many families in Afghanistan touched his own family about the time he returned. His father, legendary Cedar Falls High School boys’ basketball coach Jerry Slykhuis, and his mother, Jane, were killed in a traffic accident in December 2016, just days before Matt was going to tell them of his plans to move back to Iowa, and their grandchildren would be just a 90-minute drive away. Then, a year later, his brother, Steven, died after an illness in December 2017. The losses hit his family hard, but like one does in the Army, Slykhuis says you learn to lean into each season of life and keep moving forward. Slykhuis plans to learn the Army’s resource-management system during his internship and, after that, he’ll be assigned to an Army hospital somewhere in the U.S. He likes accounting, he says, and he likes the health care setting. It’s a skill he says he can use anywhere. “I can do this for the rest of my life,” he says. • I WOULDN’T BE COMPLETELY HONEST IF I DIDN’T SAY THAT “ACCOUNTING IS SAFER. ” LT. MATT SLYKHUIS UNIVERSITY OF IOWA TIPPIE COLLEGE OF BUSINESS 17
Page 1 and 2: 2019 IOWA LEDGER UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
Page 3 and 4: The Iowa Ledger is an annual public
Page 5 and 6: Commendations and best practices:
Page 7 and 8: MEET THE Class of 2023 2019 Beta Al
Page 9 and 10: campus CPA Exam Performance The fol
Page 11 and 12: campus Baker Awarded Hancher-Finkbi
Page 13 and 14: LEFT: Collins, surrounded by his
Page 15 and 16: campus Faculty NEW FACULTY 1 LARS H
Page 17: “ I WANTED TO SERVE MY COUNTRY AN
Page 21 and 22: “The University of Iowa, Maria, a
Page 23 and 24: 2008-2019 Outstanding Accounting Al
Page 25 and 26: 13 12 7 5 8 4 2 11 15 14 1 9 10 3 6
Page 27 and 28: family Joe Ceryanec Named Deloitte
Page 29 and 30: family ALUMNI NOTES Hawkeye Pride J
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