During the spring semester, nearly 50 UB School of Management students embraced the challenge of the second annual Tax and Client Service Case Competition, a weeklong experience hosted by the UB Accounting Association and sponsored by Andersen.

The event, a beginner-friendly introduction to tax strategy, challenged future accounting leaders from the UB School of Management to think beyond the numbers and creatively address real-world issues.

Christopher Spiegelman, BS ’90, managing director at Andersen, Jose Castillo, BS ’16, MS ’17, and Gary DiGabriele, BS ’14, MS ’15, directors in Andersen’s private client services practice, assisted in developing the competition.

“Seeing each team take their own approach and creatively solve the case with thoughtful solutions was very rewarding,” said Christopher Kerr, BS ’26 and current Master of Science in Accounting student, who helped coordinate the event.  Everyone did a great job displaying their talents and abilities.”

Teams had one week to conduct research, develop the case analysis and prepare the recommendations they presented to judges Castillo, DiGabriele, Monet Hunter, BS ’25, Masters of Science in Accounting student, and Cassie Nguyen, clinical professor of accounting and law.

First-place winners: Tyler Baker, William Dong, Masen Hubbard, Christian Pacis and Edward Yu

Second-place winners: Kent Nishikiori, Kenny Schmitt, Nihal Singh, Nicholas Skaggs and Justin Weinstein

Third-place winners: Jason Chen, Vincent Chen, Daniel Glickman and Zach Sanders