Accounting Manager

Michael A. Ray

*** ******** ******,

Parsons, West Virginia 26287

304-***-**** or cell 304-***-****

abigia@r.postjobfree.com

Michael A. Ray, CPA, CGFM, MBA

Mr. Ray is a subject matter expert in Federal accounting and related

financial fields.. For over 35 years, he has either worked or consulted in

Federal Government and has had the opportunity to work in a wide range of

financial areas including financial and cost accounting, program

management, budget, and financial analysis. He has held significant

positions in civilian and defense agencies. Within the last nine years, in

two agencies, the U. S. Forest Service (2002) and Office of Justice

Programs (2005), he contributed significantly to the attainment of a

"clean" (unqualified) opinion on Agency financial statements. Both agencies

had been given a disclaimer of opinion in previous years. He has been a key

player in the implementation of Activity Based Cost in both a Defense and

Civilian agency. He has reviewed agency financial statements, reconciled

accounts (cash, expense, undelivered orders and accounts payable), reviewed

and corrected General Ledger imbalances, examined and analyzed General

Ledger account relationships to ascertain proper and complete posting,

reviewed SF-132 and 133 submissions, and participated in significant year

end closing and opening events such as attribute setting and beginning

balances. He is knowledgeable in the specifics of most Federal accounting

events and has trained colleagues in them. He is grounded in both business

and accounting practices having served in such diverse roles as a member on

organizational strategic planning groups to serving as a supervisory budget

analyst and chief operating accountant. He has been responsible for multi-

billion dollar construction and multi-million dollar operating budgets. He

has prepared Department of Defense level acquisition reports to the

Congress. He has extensive contracts experience having served on

acquisition selection boards, and worked closely with contracting officers

on billion dollar acquisitions and multi-million dollar service contracts

as a COTR.

Grant Thornton LLP

GPS - Senior Consultant (August 2007 to January 2008)

Mr. Ray worked with the U.S. Courts in refining accounting processes to

improve audit worthiness and troubleshoot technical issues for resolutions

that could not be done at their staffing level. U.S. Courts wanted to

establish a more complete control over its accounting processes and meet

the Congress' increasing demand for more financial reporting as a precursor

to funding. Numerous technical accounting issues challenged this goal. As

payroll is 65-70% of most organization's funds, Mr. Ray assumed the task of

assisting the U.S. Courts' staff with a series of payroll issues which

accounted for most of the approximately $10 million of funds needing

categorization to clear into the proper Treasury funds. This was necessary

to meet Treasury's crucial deadline for closing Budget Clearing Funds. One

categorization identified millions of Judges' pension funds incorrectly

withheld and residing in the clearing account. These funds could be

restored and recovered for U.S. Courts benefit. Mr. Ray worked closely with

the Courts finance, Title III Judges, and personnel staff in establishing

more effective relationships and processes, particularly in the benefit and

withholding functions. After reconciling millions of dollars that were

being cleared at the end of his period of work with U.S. Courts, Mr. Ray

established alternative accounting treatments and recommendations for a

number of transaction types and accounting events so that they could

efficiently be posted directly to the correct accounts. He provided

technical advice and suggestions on a broad basis to help a number of U.S.

Courts and Grant Thornton staff.

GPS - Senior Consultant (December 2006 to July 2007) Mr. Ray was the lead

on the hurricane Katrina travel voucher audit and fast pay procedures

engagement at the Disaster Finance Office, Federal Emergency Management

Agency (FEMA). In this role he was responsible for statistical reviews

which support the use of GAO FAST pay procedures and the audit of voucher

and credit card data for operations during the Katrina emergency. The

projects goal is to provide evidence for the assertion that FEMA can use

fast pay and to produce electronic tools and written procedures to assist

the Disaster Finance Center staff. Mr. Ray gave advice resulting in the

establishment of direct charge credit card control and reconciliation

procedures, an important secondary benefit of the review.

GPS - Senior Consultant (February 2004 to November 2006)

Mr. Ray performed a myriad of accounting and accounting system tasks at the

Office of Justice Programs, Justice Department (OJP). These duties included

reconciliation of cash and ledger accounts (relationship analysis),

attribute account coding at the general ledger and document level, journal

voucher adjustments, SF-132 and 133 review and reconciliation, year-end

closing and year-beginning events and analysis and input correction of

system tables. He analyzed financial statements, including final review,

and performed various tasks in support of audit liaison efforts to include

documentation supporting the client's financial assertions. Mr. Ray was

tasked to review and write a number of Agency financial policies and

procedures. He also voluntarily worked on a grant closeout task force which

closed thousands of open, completed grants which were a key Attorney

General initiative. Mr. Ray learned valuable knowledge about the program

offices at OJP and their processes. This made it possible for the CFO to

provide better accounting service and relationships with the Program

offices. In one-on-one and group training experiences, Mr. Ray, on his own

initiative, improved the overall technical and industry experience of

colleagues, both with Grant Thornton and OJP staff.

GPS - Senior Consultant (August 2003 - January 2004)

Mr. Ray was the Senior Consultant at the Transportation Security Agency

(TSA) assisting with that Agency's Payroll Taskforce Project. He was the

task lead planning and conducting the statistical approach. He directed

the sampling of key payroll problems in order to compute estimated error

rates and characteristics with the goal of systemic corrections to payroll

operations. Mr. Ray and the statistician on this project jointly developed

the numerous statistical procedures necessary. The review was analytically

rigorous with extensive external interest by the Congress and the Federal

financial media. This analysis required extensive coordination with the

TSA's numerous vendors, providers and functional contractors. In analyzing

another agency's processes with the same payroll provider as TSA, he was

able to determine systemic, solutions to slow processing speeds by

duplicating another agency's automation methods at minimal expense. The

conclusions and recommendations of this statistical task contributed to the

success of other parts of this project such as policy administration and

accurate data migration from legacy systems.

U.S. Forest Service

Staff and Cost Accountant {COTR} (August 2000 - June 2003)

Mr. Ray had primary responsibility to establish an Activity Based Cost

(ABC) System at the Forest Service. He developed work activities and

supporting documentation. He was the COTR on the financial services

contract that was awarded to develop a pilot program. He wrote contract

specifications for the effort and coordinated input from Headquarters and

Field activities. He briefed and provided training to the corporate

Steering Committee which consisted of senior managers throughout the Forest

Service. His work effort involved cost organization, coding and testing

(off the shelf application) of pilot data. During this period he was also a

key participant in the development of financial performance measures. In

July 2001, a management change refocused all accounting efforts on

obtaining an unqualified opinion on the financial statements. For the

period July 2001 through June 2003, he worked as a Staff Accountant

reconciling three general ledger efforts: payables, expenses, and cash.

These large volume accounts required the use of multiple system analytical

tools. These efforts contributed to the Forest Service going from a number

of years of a Disclaimer of Opinion to receiving an Unqualified Opinion by

its auditors. Mr. Ray was given numerous additional ad hoc assignments such

as membership on a potential Anti-Deficiency Act fact finding team

chartered by the Chief of the Forest Service and overseen by his Deputy.

Department of Defense Schools, Europe

Staff Accountant (November 1997 - July 2000)

Mr. Ray was a member of the DoD School System Financial Staff Assistance

Team Which operated out of Wiesbaden, Germany. Duties included traveling

to approximately 35 of the 170 schools in Europe and the Middle East per

year assisting school staff and administrators with a wide range of

financial and financially related functions. Special reviews were directed

by the Director, a member of the Senior Executive Service, when fraud,

waste, or abuse of government resources was suspected. Reporting and

review of these issues required complete investigation, careful

presentation, and mature judgment.

Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service

Chief of Accounting and Budget Officer (December 1994 - November 1997)

Mr. Ray was the responsible accountant for a Working Capital Fund of $250-

350 million in sales and expenses at the Headquarters in Battle Creek,

Michigan. In 1995 he was recruited by the CFO and Director of

International Operations to be the Budget Officer of a new reorganized

financial staff, located in Wiesbaden, Germany, with direction and control

responsibilities of 83 offices from Iceland to Guam.

Naval Station, Roosevelt Roads

Business Manager (August 1992 - December 1994)

Mr. Ray's responsibilities included a wide array of public works and

financial functions. He supervised an immediate staff of eight support

staff employees and three engineering staffs of 45 employees. He was the

civilian representative on the Station Quality Control Steering Committee.

The Station Commander often gave him special assignments such as

representing the Station in three way negotiations between the Station, EPA

and National Resources Defense Fund in a lawsuit action filed two years

before their tenure. Early in Mr. Ray's assignment, the Station became the

first Navy Facility to pass a Multimedia Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) inspection (air, water, solid waste, etc.). A number of naval

facilities before this had failed.

Work prior to December 1994

Mr. Ray worked in the Navy shipbuilding programs and the programming of new

weapons systems with force structure support at Headquarters, Marine Corps

during the Reagan Administration buildup. He was a budget analyst handling

five appropriations in the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) combat

systems office, cost accountant for the 688 Attack Submarine shipbuilding

program, and Business Financial Manager (BFM) of the MCM and MHC mine

warfare shipbuilding programs. The MHC program, at the time, was the only

shipbuilding program with the number of ships in the construction line to

be determined by the Congress. At Headquarters Marine Corps, he developed

the force structure to support the new weapons systems for ground combat

and assisted the programming officer and project officers in the

acquisition of new ground combat weapons. He represented the ground

combat organization in Marine Corps wide deliberations with the air and

support portions on such issues as the development of the Osprey aircraft.

References

Clifton Williams, Partner, Grant Thornton, Global Public Sector, 703-637-

2889, abigia@r.postjobfree.com

Bob Yuran, Senior Manager, Grant Thornton, 703-***-****, abigia@r.postjobfree.com

Education

The George Washington University, MBA in Finance and Investments (1989)

University of Virginia: Various accounting courses (1990-1992).

University of South Carolina: Various financial foundation business courses

(1982-1983).

University of Minnesota, Bachelor of Arts (1969)

Training and Certifications

Mr. Ray has taken numerous courses in Federal budgeting, business

processes, and accounting. Key courses have been CFO Reporting for

Financial Statements (2004); Federal Financial Statement Audits and

Government Financial Management and Control (2005); and Internal Controls

(A-123) and Government Accounting, Financial Reporting and Budget (2006).

CPA (01/94 to Present)

CGFM (12/06 to present)

Language Skills includes conversational German although not used in past

ten years.

Computer Skills

Microsoft Suite, Audit Command Language, Monarch and a number of Federal

accounting systems.

Affiliations

Member, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants

Member, Virginia Society of Certified Accountants (Northern Chapter)

Member, Association of Government Accountants

Clearance

Held a Top Secret Clearance as a Marine officer.

Held Secret Clearances during time in program planning and shipbuilding.

Clearances have expired due to the unclassified accounting work over the

past 15 years.

Military Service

Vietnam War Veteran, Combat Infantry Platoon Commander, Company Commander

(twice), Deputy Comptroller at MCRD Parris Island. Honorable Discharge

Contact this candidate