Gil Geis: A Generous Giant

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

James D. Ratley, CFE
ACFE President and CEO

Gil Geis had every reason to not be humble. As a professor and researcher, he had written more than 28 books, plus 500 articles and book chapters. He was the preeminent successor to Edwin Sutherland, the "father of white-collar crime." He was a friend and colleague of Donald Cressey — another seminal criminologist and namesake of our Cressey Award. But when you saw Gil, he didn't first talk about himself. He wanted to know what was going on in your life.

Gil passed away Nov. 10, 2012, at the age of 87. We've lost one of the pillars of our association. He was there at the beginning as he counseled and mentored ACFE founder and Chairman Dr. Joseph T. Wells, CFE, CPA, me and many others as we formed this little group that offered a distinctive new way to fight fraud. He was thrilled to help meld so many disparate disciplines that eventually would comprise the Certified Fraud Examiner credential. He wrote the criminology section of the ACFE's Fraud Examiners Manual and was the ACFE's president from 1992 until 2002.

Yet, despite his accomplishments, we'll remember him most for his kindness and generosity. "Regardless of a person's status in the field — whether a well-known scholar or a little-known student — Gil would always take the time to stop, talk and take a genuine interest," says Francis T. Cullen, Ph.D., Distinguished Research Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati, in the cover article.

In this issue, we also include an article on Gil's research by one of his disciples, Harry Pontell, Ph.D., plus the first part of one of Gil's last articles, "Unaccountable external auditors: Their roles in the 'Great Economic Meltdown.' " To complete our tribute, we're republishing a chapter from "Contemporary Issues in Crime & Criminal Justice: Essays in Honor of Gilbert Geis," a book that honored Gil on his 75th birthday.

The 17th century British preacher Robert South once said, "If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives." I think Gil would agree with that. He was a doer, for sure. But he was, more importantly, a giver.

Read more about Geis in Fraud Magazine's cover article in the March/April issue.

Jim Ratley Named as One of Accounting Today’s Top 100 Most Influential People

GUEST BLOGGER

John Gill, J.D., CFE
ACFE VP of Education

When I heard earlier this week that Jim Ratley, the ACFE’s President and CEO, was named one of Accounting Today’s Top 100 Most Influential People, I can honestly say that I was not surprised. Each fall, the publication carefully narrows down a swarm of nominations to the 100 people making a difference and “playing the biggest roles in the ongoing work that is the accounting profession.” Jim is definitely one of these people.

I have known and worked with Jim for more than 17 years, and I can assure you Accounting Today did not make a mistake. When I started at the ACFE back in 1995, I hardly saw Jim. He was on the road teaching about 75 percent of the time. Back then, I headed both the ACFE’s legal department and our research/publications department, and Jim was our program director and primary instructor. I worked with Jim to research and write a lot of the material he taught. I am always amazed at how good he was (and still is). I could hand him any set of material, and he could bring it to life like no one else.

He has taught thousands upon thousands of people over the last 25 years to glowing reviews and praise. For the first time, I’m ready to reveal his secrets. First, he knows what he’s talking about. Jim worked as a Dallas police officer and a private detective for 20 years before helping found the ACFE. When he explains how you should conduct an interview, he knows because he learned his techniques the hard way.

Second, he enjoys what he does. Jim loves talking, and he loves talking about fraud. You can see his face light up when he starts telling a story about how he nabbed the bad guy by beating him at a “cat and mouse” game during an admission-seeking interview.

And finally, he uses humor like no one else I know. It’s hard to sit and listen to one person for eight hours. But Jim not only can communicate information, he entertains as he does it. He has a thousand stories (I know because I’ve heard each one several times over the years), but I swear, they are still entertaining. The people in his classes enjoy listening and learning from him.

Today, as President and CEO of the largest anti-fraud organization in the world, he is working to expand the ACFE’s programs and services internationally, and he does an amazing job. Although his travel schedule is lighter, he still makes trips all over the globe to talk to accountants, auditors, attorneys, investigators and law enforcement about the importance of fraud detection and prevention. And once again, he runs the ACFE using his three secret weapons – knowledge, passion and humor. I am proud that Accounting Today recognized his achievements. He certainly deserves it.

The Meat and Potatoes of Fraud Examinations

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

James D. Ratley, CFE
ACFE President and CEO

Meat and potatoes. That's what many fraud examiners dine on every day. Most of us don't investigate huge frauds that implode corporations. We're normally investigating some type of asset misappropriation scheme — possibly by a middle manager who probably never committed fraud before.

In fact, the 2012 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse found that 87 percent of the cases reported to us involved misappropriating assets and approximately 87 percent of occupational fraudsters had never been charged or convicted of a fraud-related offense.

As we've found in research for previous reports, perpetrators with higher levels of authority tend to cause much larger losses. However, most of your time isn't taken up with "C-level suite" fraudsters. (Though you may have encountered a crooked CFO or two.) Your fraud examinations often deal with that longtime trusted bookkeeper who embezzled $70,000 in six years. Or that cashier who's been skimming for six months.

And then there are contracting officials (CO) who have been selecting several new bidders for jobs and seemingly ignoring longtime contractors. Charles Piper, in this issue's cover article, writes how he discovered the COs at a company had given low ratings in a bidding round to all the reputable contractors.

However, the COs then gave high ratings to a new company and awarded the contract to that company at double the price they could have paid. Piper later learned the bid evaluators were friends with the contractor. The winning bidder actually had offered a bid evaluator a job with the company during the bid evaluation process.

Read the rest of the Letter from the President and more at Fraud-Magazine.com.