Mission
To provide accounting services to non-profits and governments, enabling our clients to be successful in and better serve their community.
Vision
To become the leading provider of accounting assistance and audit preparation services to Alaskan communities.
Values
Results
(Dedication, Determination, Passion, and Effective Use of Technology)
We work with you to determine the best solutions for your organization’s unique needs, then leverage our seasoned expertise to achieve the best possible results.
Relationships
(Integrity, Ethics, Honesty)
We are your trusted partner in success. Our Firm is large enough to offer a full range of professional services at a fair price but small enough to give your organization the attention you deserve.
Relief
(Sharing Knowledge Through Mentoring and Training)
Rest assured that when a need arises, our Firm is ready and capable of handling everything for you so you can focus on what matters most.
Staff Profiles
Carmen Jackson, CPA
Firm President & Certified Public Accountant
- Certified Public Accountant, State of Alaska, #2685
Carmen Jackson, a Certified Public Accountant located in Wasilla, Alaska. Living in Alaska her entire life, she’s had the opportunity to travel throughout this great state. As a child, Carmen spent nearly five years living on the Kuskokwim River in Aniak. In college, she participated in the Volunteer Tax and Loan Program with the University of Alaska Anchorage and the Alaska Business Development Center. During her first season in this program, she was able to travel to a couple small villages outside of Bethel. The following season, Carmen was asked to return as a supervisor, and she thoroughly enjoyed assisting the village people and exposing students to in rural Alaska.
After college, Karen Rogers of Altman, Rogers & Company CPA’s, hired Carmen as Staff Accountant, and she had the opportunity to further travel in rural Alaska providing financial services to governmental and not-for-profit organizations. For seven and a half years, beginning in 2006, Carmen worked as Director of Financial Services at Mat-Su Health Services, Inc., a Federally Qualified Health Center funded by the State of Alaska Department of Behavior Health, that provides integrated medical and behavioral health care. Since then, she has come to realize that rural Alaska is where she wants to focus most of her work, which is why she started her own practice providing consulting services to this population.
Crystal Miner, MBA, FACMPE, CPC-A, CHC
Business Manager & Business Consultant
- Master of Business Administration; Alaska Pacific University
- American College of Medical Practice Executives, Fellow
- Certified Professional Coder – Apprentice
- Certified Healthcare Compliance Specialist
- Six Sigma Yellow Belt
Crystal Miner has lived in Alaska for 16 years. She has had over ten years in healthcare management, running different types and sizes of medical clinics in Alaska. As part of this experience, Crystal has overseen numerous projects, including implementing and converting software and a complete transfer of location for an organization. She has a Yellow Belt in Lean Six Sigma as well as a Master’s in Business Administration from Alaska Pacific University.
In 2018, Crystal started her own management consulting company and has assisted organizations in starting up a business, shutting down a business, hiring, software utilization, and policy and procedure development. Her skill set is of value as she can see the big picture of a project and work effectively with a team to assure the overall goals are met without missing needed details. She is IT savvy and understands how to communicate with people of differing computer skill sets.
Vadette (DeeDee) Fowler, CPA
Supervising CPA
- Certified Public Accountant, State of Alaska #AA1486
DeeDee is a life-long Alaskan and holds an active CPA license in Alaska with over 30 years of progressive and comprehensive finance and operational experience in the healthcare, not-for-profit and governmental sectors. She is passionate about service and is motivated to give back to her community and State. DeeDee is experienced in a variety of financial functions including accounting, grants management, revenue cycle, procurement, budgeting, financial reporting, financial risk management, financial compliance, financial policy and procedure development, internal audit functions and external audit readiness. She understands how to identify and leverage data and dashboards as tools to gauge organizational health as well as smart growth. As a finance leader, DeeDee strives to cultivate a culture of service and optimism that has resulted in higher levels of employee retention, increased accuracy and greater productivity.
Laura Klem, CPA
Certified Public Accountant
- Certified Public Accountant, State of North Carolina, #41518
Laura Klem, CPA grew up in a small town in Southern Indiana and was recruited by N.C. State University to play softball; this is where she received her Bachelor of Science in Accounting. She also obtained a Master’s in Trust and Wealth and Management from Campbell University. She is currently a licensed Certified Public Accountant in North Carolina and would like to pursue her reciprocity CPA license in Alaska. She has nearly 15 years of experience in a wide variety of governmental auditing and accounting positions. For four and half years, Laura worked as a state auditor in North Carolina, where she performed audits on the state’s departments/agencies, universities, and community colleges’ annual comprehensive financial reports (ACFR) and single audit reports. She also has over 7 years of experience assisting government clients with financial reporting requirements and procedures, GASB implementations and producing the state of North Carolina’s ACFR report. Her latest role includes leading the implementation of a statewide ERP for the financial reporting process. She also has experience in internal audit and developing and teaching best practices for internal controls. Laura enjoys helping clients and teams reach their goals, excels at learning new software quickly, and assisting clients with standards and procedures.
Mary Arnette, CPA
Certified Public Accountant
- Graduate Studies in Accounting – Stetson University
- Bachelor of Science – Accounting, University of Central Florida
- Certified Public Accountant – Retired
Mary Arnette is a Certified Public Accountant located in Seneca, South Carolina. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting from the University of Central Florida in Orlando and has more than 25 years of healthcare accounting experience. Her professional experience includes serving as Chief Financial Officer for a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) and as Chief Financial Officer, Compliance Officer, and Financial Analyst for hospitals. In addition to healthcare, Mary has experience in the legal, banking, and tax industries. She enjoys serving as a volunteer tax preparer for the IRS VITA program and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Mary enjoys spending time with her husband, grandchildren, and their two dogs. In addition, Mary likes knitting, sewing, crafts, and vacationing at the beach.
MC Pehle, CPA
Certified Public Accountant
- Certified Public Accountant, State of Illinois #065032676
MC Pehle was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs and attended Augustana College in Rock Island. While working towards his degrees in math, computer science, and accounting, MC Pehle was a paid intern for a small city that was one of the first governments in Illinois to convert to the GASB 34 reporting model which began his interest in governmental accounting. After graduating summa cum laude, he was hired by a Top 50 accounting firm as a part of the governmental auditing team. There, he worked with a wide range of municipalities in audits, consulting, and working in interim financial positions. After a dozen years in this position MC transitioned out of public accounting and moved into financial positions within a couple of local governments where he worked on all areas of municipal accounting, finance and management.
MC has since returned to public accounting and consultancy work with an emphasis on governmental accounting and finance. In his spare time, MC enjoys playing sports, hiking, reading, and visiting museums. He prioritizes traveling with his family, and he likes to find ways to incorporate his hobbies while on vacation.
Cheryl Bartlett
Senior Accountant
- Accounting/Business Systems – Linn-Benton Community College
Cheryl has over 40 years of experience and education in accounting and the medical field. Her previous position was as an Accounting & Billing Manager in a busy behavioral health not-for-profit medical practice in Wasilla, Alaska. She also worked as a customer service agent for Alaska Airlines which comes in handy when you travel thru the State as much as we do. She works well with all personalities, stressful situations and manages workloads with staff for effective results. As a Delivery Manager, she supervised staff, scheduled staff, deliveries and interfaced with a variety of customers daily. Cheryl is no stranger to life in rural Alaska. She also worked as an Office Manager & Medical Assistant in Wrangell, Alaska where she specialized in managing the medical office for the family practitioner. She hired, trained, and supervised new staff, handled collections, and processed medical billing. In her off time, Cheryl enjoys outdoor activities, traveling, grandchildren, and supporting her husband’s commercial fishing ventures in the Bristol Bay.
Cheryl’s work at Carmen Jackson CPA, LLC includes assisting clients with their accounting needs, creating training manuals, and training staff. Cheryl excels at learning new software quickly and easily. She can troubleshoot software issues and work with vendors and clients to get accounting software working efficiently for clients. She is able to work quickly through backlogged work, see patterns and find errors in data processing and system issues. Cheryl assists with audit preparation and provides interim staffing for accounting positions including supervisory roles.
Valera Brickel
Senior Accountant
- Hospital Accounting Certificate – HFMA
Valera Brickel was born and raised in Alaska. In 1984 she began work in purchasing at Valley Hospital in Palmer, a small nonprofit hospital. She continued with the hospital moving to a staff accountant position in 1989 experiencing the growth and merger with a for-profit corporation and construction of MatSu Regional Medical Center. After 23 years of employment at the hospital, Valera moved north to Talkeetna and joined the staff of Sunshine Community Health Center (SCHC) as an accountant in November 2007.
Valera quickly became the “go-to” person during the implementation of the new Practice Management System/ Centricity EMR Program. Her attention to detail, tenacity in solving problems, and keen knowledge of the fiscal operation made her the prime candidate for advancement to Finance Director in April 2009. In filling the role of Finance Director with payroll, accounting, and patient billing under her direction she expanded her knowledge with both online and conference training. Valera was employed with SCHC for 14 years. She is highly skilled in specialty reporting for Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC). She has attended numerous conferences held by the Alaska Primary Care Association for several years, including UDS training and Finance Summits. She is regarded by her peers as one of the most technically skilled finance professionals within the FQHC community in Alaska.
Vivian Guirguis
Senior Accountant
- Masters in Financial/Managerial Accounting
Vivian is a senior account/ financial analyst located in Nashville, TN. She earned her bachelor’s degree in accounting in 2007 and a one-year master’s degree in financial managerial accounting from the University of Alexandria in 2010. Vivian has a little over 12 years of accounting experience in a variety of industries. Her professional experience involves governmental accounting as she served as a senior accountant/auditor in TN. She performed audits on state-funded grant recipient agencies. Vivian enjoyed helping agencies resolve audit issues and directing them toward best practices for becoming compliant with the policies and procedures.
She also held a position as a senior financial analyst at a reputable multinational automaker company where she performed broad financial analyses on several inter-company transactions and oversaw cash and other balance sheet account reconciliations performed by the Mexican team. Vivian helped in directing them on how to balance out the accounts. She is vastly experienced in several accounting software that includes but are not limited to ERP, Oracle, SAP& Blackline.
Vivian enjoys spending time with her two kids and husband, and likes to cook, hike, and beach vacations.
Heather Ash
Firm Accountant
Heather Ash has over 7 years of accounting experience in a variety of industries. She was born and raised in Palmer, Alaska. Heather received her Associates of Applied Sciences in Accounting at the University of Alaska, Mat-Su College in 2019. She enjoys spending time with her family and training and riding her horse.