By Gwen Green (gagreen@ualr.edu)
June 23, 2010
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - As a UALR accounting student, Kevin White made himself an ambitious but not unusual to-do list: get a master's degree, pass the CPA exam, go to law school. Then he added one more not-so-conventional item - join the Peace Corps.
Now, his to-do list is almost done:
Check. White received his master's degree in taxation from UALR in May 2009.
Check. He passed all four sections of the Arkansas CPA exam on the first attempt this spring.
Check - in about three years. White applied and was admitted to UALR's Bowen School of Law but plans to defer his admission.
Check. White signed the papers June 8 for a 27-month stint with the Peace Corps beginning Aug. 17. He'll be a community economic development consultant in Panama, teaching schoolchildren about entrepreneurship and assisting entrepreneurs with writing business plans, securing financing, recordkeeping and marketing.
With two UALR degrees in hand and two years at the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center in the College of Business under his belt, he believes he is well prepared for the task.
"The job duties will be very similar to what I've done here at ASBTDC," said White. "The fundamentals of owning a business - the skill set, time commitment - are the same anywhere. Recordkeeping might be hand-written instead of on QuickBooks, but it's still important."
White, a native of Conway, earned his bachelor's degree in accounting in May 2008 from UALR and was named Most Outstanding Student in Accounting. That summer he entered the master's program and began working at the ASBTDC as a graduate assistant. He counseled prospective and current small business owners, helping write and review business plans, assisting in loan package development, creating financial projections, performing financial analysis and reviewing websites for search engine optimization and usability.
Last summer, he became a full time business consultant at ASBTDC and waded into the lengthy and competitive Peace Corps application process. The Peace Corps receives more than 15,000 applications each year for approximately 4,000 spots in countries requesting assistance around the world.
"They said the application process could take 12 months," White said. "I didn't really believe it, but my departure date will be exactly 364 days from the date I submitted my application."
Few Arkansans get the Peace Corps experience. According to the Peace Corps website, only 34 current volunteers are from Arkansas. Of the nearly 200,000 Americans who have served since the Peace Corps began in 1961, 874 were from Arkansas.
The Peace Corps notified White in December that his application was accepted and assigned him to sub-Sahara Africa. He spent the spring undergoing medical checks, completing forms and waiting to hear his final placement date and country. An email from the Peace Corps finally came June 2. "I received an email that an invitation was in the mail for me to leave Aug. 17, 2010, and I would be departing for Central America. I wondered if it was a typo," said White. The invitation to Panama, not a country in sub-Sahara Africa, arrived in the mail three days later.
He is excited about his Central American destination and believes the two-year immersion in a Spanish-speaking culture will translate well when he returns home. "I'll be learning about the business customs there and will be familiar with them when I come back, which could be helpful with the growing Hispanic population here," he said. Now that he is not going to Africa, White will have to quickly improve his Spanish, but he is happy that Panama is closer to home and in the same time zone as Arkansas.
White, an avid outdoorsman who enjoys hiking and camping, will likely face rustic living conditions in Panama.
"I first thought Panama would be more urban and more developed than Africa until I saw photos," he said, pointing to a just-returned Panama volunteer's Facebook photos of her open-air living quarters with a dirt floor, small cook fire and no electricity. "Now I'm prepared for not-so-developed."
The mission of the Peace Corps is to promote world peace and friendship. "I'm doing this because I wanted to give back in some way," said White, whose last day at ASBTDC is June 30.
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