The College of Business Administration welcomed Charles A. Bowsher, former comptroller general and head of the General Accounting Office, to the campus where he addressed Loyola Marymount University students, alumni, faculty, and other visiting audience members.

Mr. Bowsher’s presentation, “The Banking Crisis, Debt, and Ethics”, was part of the Center for Accounting Ethics, Governance, and the Public Interest’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

“Mr. Bowsher is the epitome of the type of person we have in our Distinguished Speaker Series,” said Larry Kalbers, the R. Chad Dreier Chair in Accounting and director of the Center for Accounting Ethics, Governance, and the Public Interest. “He has a wealth of knowledge, experience, and integrity that has continued to strengthen in over 50 years of service to the public and the accounting profession. In addition to his standing-room-only presentation in the evening, he met with small groups of students, faculty, alumni, and guests throughout the day. It was obvious that the students were both impressed and comfortable with him. Even during the reception after his evening presentation he was surrounded by students asking questions and intently listening to what he had to say. It was a wonderful visit.”

Bowsher has a distinguished record of accomplishments in serving the public and the accounting profession. He was nominated by President Reagan in 1981 and served as comptroller general for 15 years. During that period, he led the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in addressing the savings and loan crisis and other major issues. In his introduction of Bowsher, Kalbers noted that under Bowsher’s leadership, the GAO issued a report in 1994 on the danger of derivatives to the financial system, which became an important factor in the current financial crisis. Prior to that he was affiliated with Arthur Andersen and Co. for 21 years and served four years as assistant secretary of the Navy for financial management.

Using many personal stories and anecdotes including how the depression affected his family when he was an infant in the ‘30s and what he learned as he worked on the savings and loan crisis in the ‘80s, Mr. Bowsher drew parallels between other periods of economic instability to the current banking climate and global economy. Mr. Bowsher said he believes while there are still a lot of tough decisions to make, he is confident that the banking system will not collapse. He said a year ago he spoke to a lot of Wall Street veterans, who—at the time—“weren’t so sure.”

“Think big,” encouraged Mr. Bowsher at the end of his highly educational, highly entertaining address. “We need talent at the top in both the private sector and the government sector.”

At the end of his speech, Bowsher was presented the Accounting in the Public Interest Award from the Center for Accounting Ethics, Governance, and the Public Interest, in “recognition of his ethical leadership and values in his service to the public and the accounting profession.”


More about Charles A. Bowsher:

Since retiring as comptroller general, Mr. Bowsher has served on several corporate boards, is a member of the advisor to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a trustee of the Center for Naval Analysis, the Logistics Management Institute, and the United States Navy Memorial Foundation in addition to many others. Mr. Bowsher was also Chairman of the Public Oversight Board, which was an independent, private sector body that monitored and reported on the self-regulatory programs and activities of the SEC Practice Section of the Division for CPA firms of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

In April 2009, Charles A. Bowsher resigned as chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank System’s Office of Finance, a post he had held for two years. The reason? According to a Wall Street Journal article, Bowsher “decided I didn’t have confidence in the financial statements.”

In September 2009, a special report was issued by a special review committee comprised of four public members of the board of governors of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The committee, chaired by Bowsher, was critical of FINRA’s examination program for not detecting major scandals associated with Bernard Madoff and R. Allen Stanford.

Bowsher a graduate of the University of Illinois with a major in accounting, and received an MBA from the University of Chicago.