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For This CPA, Accounting goes to the Dogs!
By David N. Plaskow, NJSCPA Publications Editor

Charles Fainsbert, CPA, gets caught up on the latest
accounting pronouncements as (from left) Ripley, Tank and Prince look on.

Imagine hitchhiking 25 miles from the demilitarized zone during the Korean War just to take your graduate school entrance exam. That’s exactly what Charles “Chuck” Fainsbert, CPA did.  “I took the exam at the University of Seoul and was the only enlisted man there,” Fainsbert recalls.  “I was determined to get into a good grad school.”

Fainsbert, who currently lives in Somerset, grew up in Queens, New York, the son of a father who was a teacher and a mother who was a concert violinist.  “My mom, Bertha, even got to play Carnegie Hall,” Fainsbert states.

Fainsbert went to Columbia College in Manhattan for his undergraduate degree.  He worked his way through school by running a dance band that played the college circuit.  In the summer, he drove a truck that delivered straw and oats to racetracks.  “Both my parents passed away while I was at Columbia,” Fainsbert says.  “So it wasn’t the best period of my life.”

After graduating from Columbia, Fainsbert did a one-year stint in Korea.  “It was a really dirty existence,” he says.  “And it gave me a lot of time to think about my future.”  He did well enough on the graduate test to go to the Wharton School of Business for his M.B.A.  “It was either Wharton or Harvard.  My dad, Maurice, went to Harvard, but by going to Wharton I was able to go to school with my little brother, Stephen,” notes Fainsbert.  “And I chose accounting because I felt it was the most challenging major and would give me the best background for business.”

After graduating in 1958, Fainsbert interviewed with both the FBI and the CIA.  He ultimately went to work as an auditor for Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Company, better known today as KPMG.

By the early ‘60s, Fainsbert was working for the American Institute of CPAs running a staff training program.  Yet he admits to flunking the CPA exam a few times because he got distracted by other things, like participating in local politics.  “That’s a lesson for young people: prepare, take the review test and don’t get diverted,” Fainsbert advises.  In fact, when he found out he finally passed, his AICPA class celebrated by throwing him in Littlefield Fountain at the University of Texas.  “Then-Governor John Connally even made me an honorary Texas citizen,” Fainsbert laughs.

Around this time, Fainsbert began a 30-year relationship with Rutgers University as an adjunct professor.  “Chuck is a whirlwind of energy and commitment when it comes to helping students,” says his longtime friend and colleague, Leonard Goodman, CPA.

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, Fainsbert worked in industry with Turner Construction and Microwave Semiconductor Corporation.  “Doing internal auditing really gives you insight as to the inner workings of a corporation.  It shows you how a company ticks,” comments Fainsbert.

During semi-retirement in 1989, Fainsbert started a company in his basement, upgrading and repairing computers.  “It became a $200,000-a-year operation,” says Fainsbert.  “But I eventually stopped because it got to the point where I’d have had to hire people, and I just didn’t feel like being a supervisor at that point in my life.”

In his free time, Fainsbert enjoys his ham radio – he once “patched through” someone at the South Pole with a relative in Pennsylvania – and he used to fly airplanes.  But his current passion is rescuing English Mastiff dogs.  “My wife, Lucie, and I just fell in love with them,” Fainsbert says.  In 11 years, the couple has saved 176 Mastiffs.  Chuck built a barn for them with all of the amenities, and Lucie has even published a book on the experience, Heal My Broken Heart.

The Fainsberts have three daughters: Brenda, a nurse; Debra, a marketing professional; and Amy, a fellow CPA and New Jersey Society of CPAs member.  In addition to Amy, Fainsbert also contributes to the accounting profession and the Society by being active in the Middlesex/Somerset Chapter.  “I joined the Society because there’s strength in numbers,” Fainsbert comments.  “And I stay active because, as a senior practitioner, I feel I can help those who have a little less experience.  For me, it’s give-back time.

New Jersey CPA • March • April 2007
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