Orie The Accountant
As a fourth year college student Orie’s intent was not to become an accountant. He became an accountant because of a fluke. He had originally enrolled at Washington State University as an engineering major but after one semester transferred to the University of Washington and changed his major to economics. He became very involved with the ROTC program in the midst of the Vietnam war and was appointed the Cadet Colonel Commander for the University Corp. His intent was a military career. It was at this point when he was due to graduate and become a commissioned intelligence officer heading for an assignment in Germany that a fluke changed everything for him.
The fluke started with a series of events, the first of which was Reed’s graduation from college. At this point Orie and Reed had not met. Reed’s parents had a farm outside of Ephrata and left their 19 year old daughter in charge of the family farm while they traveled 800 miles to Reed’s graduation. Orie and the Nielsen’s daughter, Ruth, had met a few weeks prior to their trip and were just beginning to date.
Orie stopped by the farm one day to say hi to her when the next in that series of events occurred. The cows got out. A neighbor came by as Orie was visiting to let her know that the cows were out in the lower field and she needed to get them back inside the fence. Ruth set out to take care of getting those wandering cows in and Orie offered to help. As they were walking down to the field they passed the corals where the horses were kept. Orie, never having lived on a farm or ridden or horse, but having watched Bonanza and Rawhide and other TV shows with horses and cows, suggested it would be good to ride the horses down to the lower field and “round ‘em up”. Ruth, wanting to impress Orie with her horsemanship skills and knowledge of “rounding ‘em up” said okay and jumped on one of the horses. The problem was she didn’t take the time to put on the saddle or bridle. She rode the horse around the corral a bit and then jumped off to let Orie on while she got another horse and the saddles and bridles. Orie got on the horse, not realizing that a saddle and more importantly a bridle is pretty important in riding and controlling a horse, especially for a beginner.
It was at that point that the next in the series of life and career changing events occurred. Orie didn’t know anything about horses and the horse knew it. The horse immediately took off running as fast as he could toward the fence and just as he was about to run into it, he stopped suddenly which threw Orie over his back and into the fence. He hit the fence full force with his body and crumpled to the ground landing in a pile of cow and horse manure. It was a scary thing to witness but seeing him laying there on the ground spitting out manure was, at least for a few seconds, quite funny to Ruth until she realized he was badly hurt.
It was only moments after the accident and just at the right time that Ruth’s future brother-in-law unexpectedly showed up to see how things were going on the farm. He and Ruth were able to get Orie to the hospital in town where it was determined he had broken his back, his hip and his ribs. When Orie recovered enough to go back to the University, the Army decided they didn’t want him anymore and thus his military career was over before it had really begun.
It was at that point that Orie surveyed his situation and decided accounting would be a good choice as there would always be work. He started taking accounting classes and fortunately found out he had a knack for it. He continued dating Ruth and despite her responsibility in ending his military career they eventually married. When it was time to graduate the economy was very poor and there were few jobs around, even in accounting…..except in Alaska and California, and who in the world would want to move there? Orie and Ruth did.
They packed up their stuff and shipped it on a Tote barge and arrived in Anchorage in the fall of 1976. Orie came to find a place to live. Instead of spending much time looking, he was immediately shipped out to a remote native village for his first job. What an adventure that was and a whole different story. As Ruth was expecting their 2nd child she wanted to make sure she had a roof over her head and a bed to sleep in before she came to join Orie in Alaska. Orie promised he had both so she got on the plane. It turns out he fibbed just a bit. The bed was actually an army cot… for one person. Ruth slept in it one night and grumbled the whole time. They bought a real bed the next day.
The rest is history. They fell in love with Alaska, made it their home and raised six children here. Orie became a partner with Ernst and Whinney which later became Ernst and Young and when they pulled out of Alaska he and Ruth decided they couldn’t pull up their deeply sunk roots and didn’t leave. Orie approached Dave Cottrell and Bob Mikunda and they agreed on a partnership and thus grew the largest Alaskan firm. It turned out very well and provided Orie with a wonderful career as an accountant, even if it did start out as a fluke.
