Rick Richardson, CPA, CITP, CGMA has been known by many titles whether it is audit guru, convention presenter or technological Nostradamus. Of all of his titles, fewer seem to be aware of Richardson being an unofficial Beach Boy. This title was bestowed on him in 1964 when he played drums on the recordings of the Beach Boys’ “California Girls” and “Fun, Fun, Fun.” This achievement culminated from a life-long love of music and was eventually followed by a career in accounting and auditing.
“I started playing the drums around seven years old, something like that,” said Richardson. “All through school I was involved with bands, in elementary school, junior high school, very active in high school. One of the reasons I picked UCLA to go to college was the music program. Though I didn’t get a degree in it I wanted to be involved in the band program at UCLA. In terms of UCLA, I was involved with the marching band and the symphonic wind ensemble. As I got into my junior and senior years I was able to be in the 24-piece big band called the varsity band.”
While involved in numerous ensembles at UCLA, Richardson’s musical reputation had the director of bands call him one day asking if he would like to sit in for an all-nighter recording session. Of course, Richardson said he’d love to.
“I showed up at the event and knew nothing about the Beach Boys at the time because they were still relatively unknown,” said Richardson. “A couple of songs had done pretty well but not much. My big claim to fame is an overnight recording session with two reasonably big hits over a 50-year span.”
The following 10 to 11 hours of recording saw Richardson working side by side with music genius/notorious perfectionist Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. The recording process proved arduous as lines of music were recorded and re-recorded far more times than Richardson had expected.
“The thing I never realized was how many times you re-record the song over and over again with slight nuances,” said Richardson. “They might take four bars from one recording and four bars from another recording.”
Aside from making musical history with some of the greatest musicians of a generation, Richardson surpassed the average daily earnings for a college student by a great deal. Richardson walked away with enough to pay his next semester’s fees in cash. This was not bad for a night’s work.
Richardson eventually received his degree and committed his talents to public accounting. He then began to focus on auditing where he found his true passion for numbers.
“I got into the auditing side of the game because I never really liked accounting per se.,” said Richardson. “I did it and I was good at it. The reporting side doing all the footnotes and all of the stuff that was required for accounting never interested me. What did interest me was, ‘are the numbers we’re putting in there good? How do we find out if they’re good before we put them on the financial statement?’ The idea of being that skeptical guy that figures out why sales are down in this one quarter.”
One might say the transition from music to accounting and auditing was drastic as Richardson claims there is little overlap between the two vocations. However, Richardson proved himself capable of approaching the different field with the same level of virtuosity. Richardson rose to become the chief technologist for Ernst and Young which led him to being the chief technologist for the CPA profession and sought after technology futurist presenter.
“I would say the two are distinctly different and I like them both for different reasons,” said Richardson. “The preciseness of the computer field and auditing compared to the emotional side, I still get very emotional whenever I play. For me music really is something from the heart.”
Richardson said his drumming is a terrific avocation as the life of a professional musician is one of constant travel which would keep him away from family. While moving ever forward in the world of auditing and technology, Richardson continues beat away at his drum kit with family and friends and still has fun, fun, fun doing it.
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