Your Bridge to Success
Chris de Lorimier, EA, MBA
Early on when my wife, Mary, and I were still dating, she offered to give me a tarot card reading. I’ve never been interested in or believed any of it, but I was happy to oblige to be able to spend more time with her. I remember one of the cards that came up during my “reading” was the Bridge card, and Mary explained that it meant “progress, connections, and stability.” Looking at my life at the time, it was an exciting card to get since we had just started talking about marriage and I had just started a new career. Today, I see that same symbol of the bridge applies to my time as an Enrolled Agent, and I can easily connect my membership with CSEA to the progress, connections, and stability that I have experienced as a growing EA. Having a professional organization and its members behind you is an empowering thing no matter where you are in your career.
Equally so, look at the 19 chapters that make up CSEA (20 including the Japan Society of Enrolled Agents!) and the bridges that exist between these chapters and their members. Today, I am excited to see our chapters regularly coordinating events and working together to better serve their members. Our chapters are getting some of the best speakers from across the nation simply by coordinating events with other neighboring chapters. Equally so, last year we saw CSEA’s Cannabis Roadshow work its way across the state and appear in three different chapters. Bridges are used to overcome obstacles and the connection between our chapters serves this same purpose.
Upon joining CSEA, we quickly learn what chapter we’ll belong to, but we are not reminded enough about the possibility to attend another chapter’s events and all the possible connections with other EAs just beyond our own chapter’s boundary. Several CSEA members outside of my own chapter have become friends and invaluable resources simply because I was willing to try something new and travel a little bit further to another chapter’s event. With the technology available today, another CSEA member is just a phone call, email, Facetime, or even web meeting away. It doesn’t take a formal event for CSEA EAs to connect with one another, and we couldn’t belong to CSEA at a better time.
So for those members who are looking to shake something up or try something new, I urge you to visit a new chapter and see what they are doing. We’re all on this bridge together so we might as well have some fun while we do it.
Chris de Lorimier, EA, MBA joined CSEA in 2015 and currently serves as the President of the San Gabriel Valley Chapter and as the Chair of CSEA's Member Engagement & Promotion Committee. He has owned his tax practice, Crown City Tax Planning, since 2015, and he is also an investment advisor at O'Connor Wealth Management, a fee-based Registered Investment Advisor. He specializes in tax, retirement, and financial planning, and can be reached at cdelorimier@crowncitytax.com.