Marriott School Students Take Top Honors in National Tax Competition

The Marriott School graduate team that took second place at the tax challenge.
Front: Mark Chain, national director of recruiting and human resources management at Deloitte, Jaron Wilde, and John Werlhof. Back: Paul Rasmussen, Chad Hungerford, and Robert L. Gardner.

PROVO, Utah — Dec 11, 2003 — A Marriott School undergraduate team recently placed first and a graduate team placed second at the national Deloitte Tax Case Study Competition—beating out other top accounting schools including University of Texas at Austin, University of Illinois and University of Georgia. For the seventh time in the twelve-year history of the competition, both Marriott School teams placed among the top three in the graduate and undergraduate division—an unparalleled accomplishment.

Robert L. Gardner, the Robert J. Smith professor of accounting, advised the undergraduate student team consisting of Chad Hungerford, from Rock Springs, Wyo.; Paul Rasmussen, from Houston; John Werlhof, from Chico, Calif.; and Jaron Wilde from Ventura, Calif.

John Barrick, an assistant accountancy professor, was the faculty lead for the graduate team comprised of Linda Andrews, from Taylorsville, Utah; Marianne Hafen, from Las Vegas; Terry Jackson, from Las Vegas; and Matt Walton, from Campbell, Calif.

“The school’s continual winning speaks well of the students we’re fortunate to have at BYU,” says Kevin Stocks, the director of the School of Accountancy and Information Systems. “It also shows the important link the school emphasizes between the academic world and the world of practice.”

Twelve national teams advanced from the regional competitions in which approximately 60 teams from 40 colleges and universities competed. The national event gave the teams up to five hours to complete a complex theoretical case study that required them to analyze information, identify issues and consider alternative tax treatments for a hypothetical client situation. The BYU teams earned scholarships for themselves as well as a combined $15,000 in grants for the School of Accountancy and Information Systems.

Barrick says intense motivation led to the students’ victories. “We have great students; they take pride in the reputation of our department, the Marriott School and university,” he says.

The School of Accountancy and Information Systems is part of the Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management. Public Accounting Report recently ranked the school’s programs third in the nation. The school’s mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs. BYU is the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States.