Accounting Hall of Fame 2000 induction: Ross M. Skinner

Accounting Historians Journal, The, Jun 2001 by Rutherford, Robert T, Jensen, Daniel L, Skinner, Ross M

August 14, 2000

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Remarks, Citation, and Response

ROSS M. SKINNER

REMARKS by Robert T. Rutherford, FCA

The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants

It is indeed an immense honour for me to be here today, to have been given the opportunity to recognize the outstanding contribution of Ross Skinner to the accounting world and our community and to be amongst such an august body.

Even today, I'm sure Ross does not realize the significant impact he has had on the accounting profession and the business community. His first major accounting book "Accounting Principles: A Canadian Viewpoint", published in 1972, was highly influential in shaping accounting frameworks land providing substantial guidance to accountants, lawyers, educators and judges. Many legal cases were resolved on the strength of insight found in this publication.

The book has been republished over the years and just recently the latest edition "Accounting Standards in Evolution" has been published with co-author Dr. Alex Milburn. The book continues to contain important insights into the need for accounting, starting with a look back into history right up to the present day.

All of these things may not have happened, because the accounting profession almost lost Ross several times. Once, while riding on a friend's motorcycle, Ross got into a bit of an accident and nearly went over a hill into the St. Lawrence River. On another occasion Ross, who was looking for new challenges, was offered a position with the Ontario Jockey Club. On the other hand, a partnership with Clarkson Gordon (now Ernst & Young) was also offered.

So horseracing went on to have Northern Dancer and Clarkson Gordon got Ross. Which seems only fair. After all, why should the Ontario Jockey Club gain two bright stars in one decade?

So here we are today paying tribute to the accounting star, who is accompanied by his wife, partner and best friend, Helen, and other supporters from Canada. It now gives me great pleasure to read the citation prepared by Dan Jensen.

CITATION

prepared by

Daniel L. Jensen

The Ohio State University read by

Robert T. Rutherford

The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants

The scholarly approach of this distinguished Canadian accountant, brought new solutions to problems of both accounting and auditing. Born in 1923 in Saskatoon of parents who immigrated from Scotland, he was the son of a Presbyterian minister and a mother who valued education and took a firm hand in securing the best schooling for her son. The family moved to Oneonta, New York shortly after his birth but returned to Toronto four years later where he spent the remainder of his youth. At University of Toronto Schools, to which he gained entry by highly competitive examination, he was one of the top students in his class and also took a keen interest in sports. He developed a life-long involvement in tennis and, despite weighing less than 100 pounds, he played goalie on both Toronto Hockey League and UTS hockey teams.

Following graduation from UTS in 1940, he applied for admission to the University of Toronto. After seven days of scholarship examinations, he won highest marks in Greek and Latin and a University College scholarship for general proficiency. Knowing that he wanted to pursue a business career, he enrolled in the Commerce and Finance Honours Course at the University of Toronto. At that time, the business curriculum was under the Department of Political Economy and fully half of the C&F subjects were shared with students in political science and economics. Although he found the economics courses very satisfying, he later noted "the accounting and auditing courses were trivial and the statistics course mechanical rather than insightful. The most practically useful courses to my later career proved to be actuarial science, particularly the theory of interest, and commercial law." He played intra-mural soccer and hockey during all four years of university and was goalie on the hockey team that won the university championship for his college for the first time in 22 years. A friend convinced him to join the debate team during his senior year, whereupon he found himself struggling with the need to argue in favor of the proposition, "A woman's place is in the home," and he volunteered for work in the fields of Saskatchewan during the perilously late grain harvest of 1941, which was desperately needed to stem the food shortage in Britain.

Two years younger than most of his class mates, he was not recruited for military service until after his fourth year of university at which time he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force as a meteorologist. Following a summer of study in meteorology, he was stationed at the Air Navigation School outside Charlottetown, P.E.I. Initially he was assigned teaching duty-26 classroom hours per week-but was soon assigned the challenging job of forecasting weather conditions for the school's training flights. When the war ended, he was discharged and returned to Toronto.