Episode 2

Accounting is the Language of Business

Transcript

From the Loyola University Quinlan School of Business, this is the Q Talks podcast. 

Al Gini: Hello. My name is Al Gini, and I'm professor emeritus in the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University, Chicago, today. It's my pleasure to have as my guest a longtime strategic financial officer in a number of Chicago and Illinois corporate businesses. And most important of all, most important of all, in 1993, summa cum laude graduate in accounting from the Quinlan School of Business, Mr. Patrick J. Hunzeker. Patrick, thank you for joining us today. 

Pat Unzicker: Hey, my pleasure. Thank you. Glad to be here. 

Al Gini: Well, you know, I think in these tough times, corporate times, it's glad to be anywhere and want to have a conversation with someone. I've been looking forward to this for a long time because I've heard a great deal about you. But before we talk about your professional life, I'd like to talk a bit about your long term involvement with Loyola. As I said, you're a 1993 graduate, and according to my sources, you bleed and perspire Loyola Maroon. And I've heard that from more than one person. So if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions that have something to do with Loyola, because you yourself say that the Loyola experience and the Jesuit experience is really the foundation for your personal and professional success. And you said there was some real humility and some real gravitas. So I'd like to examine that a little bit. First of all, let me ask the obvious question Why did you choose to come to Loyola?  

Pat Unzicker: Part of it was, I think, a bit fortuitous in that the first time I stepped on campus was to attend the university. I did not visit the campus. I did visit other campuses. But the more time I spent reading about the university, the accounting department, and knowing that they produce good, funny accountants and I wanted to walk in the shoes of Bob Newhart. So are you are you a Chicago guy? I am. I grew up about 100 miles south of Chicago, so not technically on a small farm on Pontiac, Illinois. But I went to our local Catholic grade school. It was a small town of 10,000. So everybody went to the public high school and was really attracted to the city. The opportunities it brought and loyal was kind of right there in the square of a good faith based Jesuit foundation. 

Al Gini: And if you want to go into business, it's a good place to go to school because there are jobs right down the block. And by the way, for our listeners who don't recognize this, it's a while ago because Mr. Newhart, it must be 86 now. But at one time that was a draw. That was a real draw for a lot of people. And he bragged about that. And I saw him a number of times on campus, you know, bragging about his experiences here at Loyola. So that's kind of interesting. All right. Second question, you were an R.A. at Chamberlin Hall. I've got to ask you, I've heard people tell terrible stories. What did you learn there? Was it worthwhile experience or was it just de rigueur and guerrilla warfare? 

Pat Unzicker: Oh, it was a fantastic experience. Camping had just been remodeled when we moved in, so it had carpet and the cinderblock walls. 

Al Gini: Carpets, carpets. Oh, my goodness. 

Pat Unzicker: And the in all seriousness, the friends that I met as a resident assistant are friends that I still see today. We just celebrated a friend of mine's 50th birthday a year ago, and I just turned 50 yesterday. And I've got a great network of friends that I met through being a resident assistant three years at Loyola, and it was an opportunity for me to really develop some good social skills. Problem Resolution had a lot of fun along the way and was able a great way for me to also finance a big part of my education. 

Al Gini: Wow. Now I must tell you, including my wife, who was an R.A., just it was Dante's third circle of hell. They survived, but it was so difficult. And by the way, I just turned 52 as well yesterday, I think, for the 37th time. But nevertheless. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. All right. Do you recall a particular class or a particular instructor? I knew a lot of those kind of professors in those days that were of special help to you or a special guidance to you. 

Pat Unzicker: Yes, that's a long list of folks. But Brian Stanko certainly comes to mind is at the top of the list in terms of just getting a really good foundation for accounting, understanding the business, but then understanding the importance of accounting and that we speak the language of business. Right. And how no matter what career path that you choose to go in business, drawing off of that foundation of accounting is important. A gentleman who since passed a number of years ago was very instrumental in my time at Loyola, Dr. John Taber, just a well grounded individual, was always available to help me along the way with questions, pointed me in the right direction on a lot of number of opportunities in terms of how to think about internships going through the interview process. And then Ellen Landgraf, who recently retired, was fantastic. And then I can't forget would be remiss not to mention a Harvey Bowler in business law and his comedic approach to teaching business law, but was a class that I look forward to.  

Al Gini: An interesting combination of two people. Harvey laughed at everything, but made you laugh with him, but always told jokes. But Ellen laughed. Ellen was this exuberant. She made accounting seem like fun. I was thinking of getting an accounting major because Ellen was always happy, always jovial, and truly, truly now. Somebody I had lunch with every day for 20 years is Dick Cusack. Did you have a Professor Cusack? 

Pat Unzicker: I did not, no. 

Al Gini: But that's an interesting cadre of people, some of them still teaching, Bryant is still teaching. But you're right, I love the fact that accounting is the language of business. We're going to come back to that topic in a little while now. You're also a member of Alpha Sigma Nu, and since this is true with regard to the Campion Hall, Did membership in Alpha Nu help you professionally for contacts or just your fellow members help you, or is it just an honorific? 

Pat Unzicker: At the time it was honorific while I was there, but certainly the foundation, the importance of the program, and to your point, I think some great networking opportunities came out of that with fellow alum. So yeah. 

Al Gini: Now I want to ask you something really personal. And I and I and I know you're proud of this. I don't mean personal that you never feel this before, that you're really ambidextrous. Wow. Now the whole world knows that's great. But you share. You say you have a mentor and a model all the time at Loyola and Father Charles Ronan, who was a gentleman I really enjoyed and pleasure to be with. It was like sitting, having lunch with an Encyclopedia Britannica. Nothing else. Could you talk a little bit about that? 

Pat Unzicker: Father Ronan was fantastic. I met him my freshman year and would spend time with him. He was our hall chaplain in Campion at the time and just a very thoughtful guy. And he proofread literally every paper that I wrote 

Al Gini: And you and you admit this. This is not the first time you have admitted this? Yes. 

Pat Unzicker: Every paper that I wrote during my four years at Loyola, and I'm proud to say that was a big enabler of me and able to really ground myself in the importance of writing the writing-intensive classes in the Jesuit education. And Father Charlie was fantastic in helping me develop my writing skills, and proofreading skills. And I was credited in one of Father Ronan's books. I helped him do some editing and he put my name to fame. And you get small print in some last page there. Got some credit there, but just a phenomenal guy. Loved fond memories of dinners over at the Jesuits over the lake, you know, getting that kind of Budweiser. 

Al Gini: And that was a big deal privilege. That was a big deal privilege. And you felt like you were being initiated, brought into a special group. Now it has to be, although you did it all on your own, that graduating with honors to be stimulated to do that, a mentor is needed, I'm sure, because to sustain that kind of effort, to have those kind of grades. Lucky you. And good for him. What a lovely pedagogical story to tell. Thank you for sharing that with us. Now, let me ask some little longer questions or away from school, since you've graduated, you've been very involved with the School of Business. And one of your passions I found out, was Loyola Hoops. And by the way, I had that Final Four, three of those guys starters in class. And one of the things I'm really happy about is they were student-athletes. They came to class, they earned their grades. And I think if I remember without giving away their names, there was an A, a B plus and a B, and they got them. I didn't I didn't give them a break on anything. They got them. It's wonderful to be committed to that kind of involved in that kind of organization. 

Pat Unzicker: Oh, no, without a doubt. And it's such a gem to have the basketball team here in the city. I was a big fan and while I was a student and attended a lot of the women's basketball games as well as the men's game, 

Al Gini: Who were better at that time, were they not at that time? The women, yeah. 

Pat Unzicker: Yeah. And then as the years passed and it was a great venue to take my family and even before, well before the Final Four run, attending games there with the kids. And then last year when we could still attend games in person, I think my son and I hit six or seven wow games. 

Al Gini: Yeah, and they're doing very well this year and ranked nationally at number 20, you know, who knows? Who knows? It's really kind of very, very exciting. Now, I've got to ask you, given the fact you've already used the term that I that I was used later, that accounting is the language of business. And given the fact you've been so committed, I'm going to talk about your career in a second. And given the old model of learn one, do one, teach one, have you ever been tempted to teach? I have. And in fact, I have worked for an organization that had owned or does continue to own and own work there, the Becker CPA Review. So along the way, I got the opportunity to meet Newt Becker before he passed. A few years ago and I was active and would help review and develop our CPA test prep curriculum. And while I never taught. I enjoyed that. But that's something I certainly would welcome in the future. 

Al Gini: And what other involvement have you had with Loyola at the School of Business? 

Pat Unzicker: Sure. So I currently sit on the Accounting and Business Law Advisory Board, and I've been a member of that board since, I think 1998. So the longest serving member. We met and had a special meeting just last week as it relates to the re-accreditation of the Accounting and Business Law Department and met with a number of the professors from other universities that are on the accreditation team. And I love to give my perspectives and help Brian Stanko and some of the other faculty as they think about curriculum development and really staying relevant to the business community that hires Loyola grads. And I think that speaks well of not only the accounting department, but to Loyola itself, in that it's not accounting for education or accounting sake. It's for the practical sake to create thoughtful, ethical business leaders in how the university uses and leverages that board of Trustees or the board members, rather, for input on what we need and where we see skills, skill gaps, skill set needs, and how that then makes its way back into the curriculum is pretty cool. 

Al Gini: Without answering it directly from your point of view, because you may not have been involved in the direct hiring. Is it still the case, and I feel it's been the case, the reports I get that people still line up to especially hire our accounting people? Certainly for the last couple of years to hire our business people because we've made a tradition. We made a sacred tradition of being concerned with business ethics, not simply as a required course, but a way of life, a way of doing business. Is it still the case that Loyola students are in demand? Oh, yeah. And I would say even more so probably now than it was 25, 30 years ago, largely driven by 1) it's a fantastic education, the practical and relevance of the education, the business ethics and then 2) Loyola, being a located in Chicago, provides a wealth of diverse student and diverse recruiting needs, which is great. Happy to report as of this week we've got an intern on board from Loyola. And I just hired or we just hired an assistant controller back in November who's a rambler as well. So.  

Al Gini: There you go. My experience has been with students from out of town that come to Loyola for Loyola's sake, but also because Loyola's in Chicago, and you're going to get the internship down the block, which may turn into more than an internship. The famous story, of course, is the name of Quinlan's school. Mr. Quinlan was a philosophy undergraduate major, but he went down the block of Michigan Avenue to this hamburger joint, McDonald's or something like that, and started working in the mailroom and met people. And they said, Great philosophy is a great major, but perhaps you'll want to get an MBA. Comes back to Loyola still working over there. And he did fairly well for himself, I would say so, yeah. We're kind of proud of him. All right. Let's let me go on to this bigger question. This is a long lead up. Forgive me. I'm not celebrating my own virtuosity. I'm trying to celebrate yours right now. So let me set this up. I'm going to come back to your choice of majors, and I want to talk about accounting as a critical tool in the business world and a model for doing business. Now, your career started at Pricewaterhouse, and with each job change, you have increased your responsibilities and your level of decision making and the level of complexity of your job. Very often, far from the accounting itself, I don't know how many times you have to go over a ledger and you're personally responsible for it anymore, right? And then in no particular order, you've worked at Ryerson Steel. Ryerson in company, a steel company. You worked at Galileo International. You did the White Hall Jewelry, which I found interesting. You're the Sarbanes-Oxley compliance officer. You are the ethics officer there. So it was more than just accounting. Then I'm going to mispronounce the DeVry University parent company.  

Pat Unzicker: Adtellum 

Al Gini: Adtellum, thank you very much. And then Road Runner Transit Systems. And this keeps going on, but one business after another, more complex than another. And today, your chief officer of Pharmacann, Inc.. Changing the way people view cannabis. Now, clearly, you know, I'm sure your job now is about organizational development, long term planning, financial structuring, more than accounting, financial structuring, which is an entirely different thing. But I came thinking that accounting is this gateway major to this larger career. And I wonder if you really talk about that in some depth. 

Pat Unzicker: Got it. Yes. So in one of my first accounting classes. Dr. Charlie Corfield, Professor Corfield said we speak the language of business and that really resonated with me in terms of, wow, the numbers tell the story. And the interesting thing about accounting and how it was a foundation and really a nice stepping-off point in my career and to help broaden my exposure to other areas of finance is when you're in accounting, you sit at the nexus point of information, you get daily information in terms of sales reports. How do we do the previous day, that informs how we're going to do tomorrow. You close the books and that tells a story, right? And being able then to tell that story, interpret what the numbers are telling you and what direction you should go, what levers you should pull to get the results that all comes out of accounting, and being able then to leverage that as I moved into investor relations, corporate sports spokespersons roles, or when I moved into Sarbanes-Oxley and building out an organization's internal control environment to where I am today, and then going out to the capital markets and helping raise money to continue to grow our organization. End of the day, I'm representing our organization's financial performance and we couldn't tell that story without our accounts.  

Al Gini: You'll forgive me. The last name is Gini. It is Italian, and I just rewatched the Godfather series. But it struck me, by the way, I would prefer if everyone would call me Fredo, but no one does it anyway, which is the wrong name to call the Godfather series. But it struck me that in some real sense, your new jobs now, you know, you're this as the chief financial officer, you're the CEO's private consigliere. You're really whispering to power that your status may be very close to each other, but you're a two headed dragon right now and that one can operate without the other. 

Pat Unzicker: Correct. The trusted business advisor to the CEO, to the senior leadership team. And whether I'm partnering with our CEO and giving him advice and perspectives on how to solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity, or partnering with our Chief Human Resources Officer, how do we think about funding a particular benefit program to be competitive or to get the right talent on board? Or how do we design our compensation programs on a pay-for-performance basis? Right, if you want to get somebody to do something around that. So how do we structure certain compensation arrangements to get the intended behavior to drive those financial results? And being in that advisory role is great. And to leverage a Godfather role with my last name Unzicker, right?  

Al Gini: You could be, you can still qualify therefore because you want to hire non-Italians because we don't trust each other. But in a very real sense I never thought of that. The HR role is critical. You're not just order this or that, let's buy that building. Let's grow the company by 3% for the next four years. It's How do we hire? Who do we hire? How do we keep them hired? 

Pat Unzicker: And as we look out over the bow on a three year strategic plan, one year operating plan, what are those key roles that are critical to achieving that plan, right? Is this a year of growth and new store openings? And how do we think about ensuring we've got the right talent there? Is this a year of efficiency and cost containment and improvement? And do we have the right skills there or two years down the road? The company is as it comes up, a learning curve is going to more look like this. Right. So partner with the CHR role now and how do we think about our talent needs today? What are our talent needs going to look like based on. 

Al Gini: Yeah, now I want to come back to Sarbanes-Oxley are the ethics of second. But given your new position with Pharmacann, you've got to be involved on special facets for this industry, which we were laughing before. I mean, I'm like, you know, 40 years ago it was illegal and now it's a growth industry. In fact, if you can invest in this invest in this now, right? A big part of your job has to be public relations and public education. And I wonder if you could talk about that. 

Pat Unzicker: A significant part. And that started with my own education on the industry and what that meant for my reputation, what my kids would think, etc., moving into this, this business and each passing day it becomes more mainstream. So my education and how I educate people around the business, to your point is, is often with the capital markets partners and whether it's a bank lenders, folks who say, wow, this seems like an interesting business, we don't serve it today, but I would like you to serve it tomorrow because one of the biggest rude awakenings for me was things that I took for granted as a CFO of other organizations in terms of banking, treasury, management, insurance, other professional service providers. We don't have that same set of providers in cannabis, and we will over time. But how do I do that then? And that's your point, Alan, in educating people around cannabis and yeah, while it is illegal at the federal level, it is legal in certain, if not mostly all states. And because of the Cole Act, the Department of Justice is precluded from, in essence, prosecuting good operators in states where cannabis is legalized. Yeah, so helping people kind of wrap their mind around that certainly then makes my job a lot easier because I get those service providers that I want to work with. 

Al Gini: Well, let me go back to Sarbanes-Oxley. Given you're doing this with the jewelry organization, are there differences? Are we still talking about the same issues, Sarbanes-Oxley? And if you were the officer there now, are there different issues or are we talking still about how to run an ethical company, how to how to do this correctly? 

Pat Unzicker: I would say very much the same issues in terms of good internal controls, ensuring that you've got the right tone at the top, leading by example. And there's a lot of parallels with jewelry and cannabis right? They both tend to be very high-value, small items. So how do we think about the controls around inventory loss prevention, the fact that today is still largely a cash business and the internal controls around reconciling, tying out cash. And again, I think to your point, you can have the best system of internal controls and good processes in place. But if you don't have that tone at the top, the importance of ethics, the importance of leading by example, it could be detrimental and probably even more so in cannabis, in that our relationship and our reputation with the communities that we're in and the communities that we serve, our reputation with the various regulators, and there's multiple regulators, you the alone and or any other state. You know, that's all underpinned on good business ethics, transparency and doing the right thing and having an employee who gets out of step or doesn't make the right decision could get you in the wrong side of the regulator right away. So it's it's highly important. 

Al Gini: I recently I've been doing a great deal of reading on Stoicism. And believe it or not, I've recently retired and I thought somewhere along the line and well into my seventies that in achieving that age, that August age, that was your moment to say, oh, Al, you look much younger, but anyway, that I would be wise and I'm not. But I am well read and that maybe is as close as I get. But that's an important attribute. And I just found this wonderful quote, Education is an ornament and prosperity and a refuge in adversity. And I think what Loyola offers is an education beyond a major, but really about you forget the facts, but that what's left is your education, that there are standards, that leadership is important, that integrity is important, that being responsible for your actions is important, that having a sense of humor is important, but not at someone else's expense, etc., etc., etc.. And I think in tough times, I think education is--so what I'm falling back on is, or at least I'm well read and I have the thoughts of others. I may not have any personal wisdom, but I can quote three or four good, kind of profound Greeks that I've come across here and there and try to live my life. We're working towards a conclusion here, is that how you remember your education or is that just too heavy-handed for me right now? 

Pat Unzicker: No, I think that's well said, right, because the textbook is one thing, but that's often academic and a set of facts and circumstances. It's how you apply. What you learn is probably more important. And that's a big part of what I took away from oil. And one of those things of applying what I learned is right, I'm not the smartest guy in the room and I never want to portray myself as the smartest guy in the room. But how do I then build out a good team, hire people that are smarter than me? Right. Skill sets, diversity of opinion, perspectives. And certainly, you know, I took that away from the high times at Loyola on a lake shore and water on our campuses. 

Al Gini: Well, that's great to hear. And I must say that you're not alone in that assessment and that wonderful book on leadership right now. If you're the hiring officer and you hire and you're the smartest guy in the room, you haven't done your job correctly, and that wisdom is recognizing what you don't know as well as what you do now. Well, Patrick, I've heard about you for years and oh, have we met or not met and so and so but this has been not a chore, this has been absolutely delightful. Thank you again for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been a pleasure. This is Al Gini. And I've had the pleasure of talking with my interview today with Patrick see you soon. 

Speaker2: This has been an episode of the Q Talks podcast where we seek to marry the wisdom of the Quinlan community with the issues of today. Special thanks to our guests as well as Maciek Nowak, interim dean of the Quinlan School of Business, for his continued support of this podcast, Matt Shiley, our student producer for editing this episode, as well as Loyola School of Communication and W.W. for the continued collaboration. Before you leave, take a minute to support us by sharing with friends or reading and reviewing our episodes to help expand our reach. Thanks for listening and we hope you join us next time.