Special
Features / March 2007
By All Accounts
 Carol Orr
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By Pat Lawrence
Some children like to draw, and others like to run, but when she was a little girl, Carol Orr says, “I liked to fill out forms!” Now, as a Certified Public Accountant with a private practice that handles both individual and small business clients, she has plenty of opportunity to indulge.
Getting there hasn’t quite taken the straight and narrow path that might be expected for an accountant. Carol entered college with plans to become a teacher, but marriage and a baby intervened. Her family grew, and for a while, she took a position as a clerk. “I noticed right away that accountants made a lot more than clerks!”
Carol began taking accounting classes. Over the years, while she raised her three children, she took enough to earn a two year accounting degree. In 1992, after spending most of her adult life in Columbus, the Orr’s moved to Parkersburg to be near Carol’s parents. “When the kids got old enough to want a life of their own, I went back to school and got the four year degree.” A former student of Ohio State, WVUP, Arizona State, and a Columbus Business college, Carol graduated in 1997, from Glenville State College, “though I never attended a single class there. They just bundled the hours and processed the degree.”
With news that CPA requirements were changing from four years to five, she decided to sit for the CPA exam. “I wasn’t really planning on practicing, but, anyone who took the test before the change would be grandfathered under the four year rules.”
When she very nearly passed, it completely changed her thinking. “Coming so close, made me really want it!” She took the test again and passed, completed her internship and began looking for a CPA position. “There didn’t seem to be any jobs open for women my age,” so Carol decided to go into business for myself. “It was as though all doors were blocked except this one. Everything just worked.”
She began her new career in Mineral Wells, WV, in 2001. Her brother, a mortgage broker, shared his offices and referred clients. Still, Carol says, “I was terrified. It was years before I really got my confidence, before I quit staying awake at night worrying!”
As a CPA, Carol’s work schedule varies with the season. In summer, she often works four days a week, spending more time with her second passion, animal rescue. “But, this time of year, I work seven days as week, as many hours as it takes.”
Far from dreading it, Carol anticipates the annual influx of new and established clients with pleasure. “Tax season is like Homecoming. People I haven’t seen for a year come back and it’s great to see them. Plus, it’s very affirming for me when they do come back.”
One critical area of her accounting education was computer literacy, and she says, “It was a nightmare. I was convinced the building would blow up if I hit the wrong key.” But computer skills are a big part of her practice, and her success. She relies on them for research, filing returns, keeping records and, “keeping in touch with the world”.
Braving computer class was just one of those times, she says, when she couldn’t let fear stop her. “I’ve been scared to death at times, afraid I’d fail, or do a bad job. It was just lack of confidence. It handicaps many women I’ve met. Going back to school, starting something new, doing something different, can be scary. But women should never stop learning. They should never give up hope of a degree or a new career. It can be done, one step at a time, one class at a time. There’s a whole new life, if a woman wants it.”
Although the tools of her profession are numbers and forms, Carol says it’s actually a ‘people’ business and the relationships are what make it especially gratifying. “I didn’t like accounting in a big company, where there’s little personal contact. I like accounting when it’s face-to face, where I fell like I’m helping.”
With three grown children, a successful business and thirty years of marriage to Dwight-she verified the total with a calculator-Carol has made a life that balances as neatly as her checkbook. She fills out at least a few forms everyday but week after week, year after year, she’s also a hero, hundreds of times over, to the lost and abandoned animals that find sanctuary through her efforts.
She says, “I’ve learned to hate it when someone says ‘You can’t do that’. It may take time, but whatever it is, no matter how afraid you might be, tone step at a time, it can be done.”
To contact Carol Orr, call 304-489-4210.
Copyright © 2007 A Woman's View. All rights reserved.
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