This web site is designed to provide guidance to students taking the financial accounting and tax courses that I currently teach at CSUB. It contains the essential elements of my self-published TAG PACKAGE. TAG is further explained in the essential TAG graphics found on under the INFORMATION ABOUT TAG section of this site. Click on GENERAL COURSE GUIDELINES for information on my classroom and instructional policies.
GENERAL:
I entered the Faculty Early Retirement Program in Fall 2006. I have been with CSUB since 1982, when I moved to Bakersfield from my home town of Chicago. Although my wife, Rita, and I are Midwest transplants, our daughter, Sandy, considers herself a California girl since she was only six when the Patten’s made their move to California. At CSUB I have; been accounting department chair; coordinate the CSUB Volunteers In Income Tax Assistance [VITA] site; and ran the BECKER CPA REVIEW course on campus. For the California Society of CPAs I have been a Bakersfield chapter vice-president, and chair of both the local and state-wide Careers in Accounting committees.
I see my career as starting out as an accountant, then changing to an accountant who taught accounting, and now I view myself as a business educator. I taught accounting at a major community college in Palatine Illinois for seven years before coming to CSUB. My non-teaching experience includes running my own accounting practice as well as two years with Ernst & Ernst (a.k.a. Ernst & Young). I also have "BIG" corporate accounting experience with US Gypsum and Continental Bank; "shirt-sleeve" controllership experience with an electrical contractor; bank and S&L audit experience, and; worked as chief accountant for a farmers cooperative.
EDUCATION:
Bachelors in Business & MBA, both in accounting from DePaul University-Chicago, Illinois
PROFESSIONAL DESIGNATIONS:
Certified Public Accountant-Illinois certificate 12,873 issued 2/17/71
Publication summary:
Author of a text on bank accounting, and contributing author to Shepard’s McGraw-Hill
HANDBOOK OF FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT FOR BANKS. Co-author of two papers on use of microcomputers in small business.
Prepared the computer note
vignettes which appeared in the first three editions of ACCOUNTING PRINCIPLES by Weygandt,
Kieso, and Kell. Authored the test bank for the second edition of McGraw-Hill's
INTERMEDIATE ACCOUNTING by Spiecland, Sepe, and Tomassini. This site
contains the essential elements of Jim Patten's self-published TAG PACKAGE.
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS:
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants [AICPA] (since 1971)
California Society of CPAs [CSCPA] (1986-2003)
Cal CPA Society-Bakersfield Chapter Vice-president (1993-4)
and
State Chair-Careers in Accounting committee (1993-4)
American Accounting Association [AAA] (1986-2003)
CSUB Administrators of Accounting Programs Group representative (1988-92)
Illinois CPA Society (from 1971-1985)
Small Business Institute Directors Association (from 1984-1986)
Board Member-Kern Child Abuse Prevention Council (from 1986-1990)
CURRENT CSUB SERVICE ACTIVITIES:
Web master for the University Accounting Association
Coordinator of the CSUB Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) site
LINKS TO COURSE RESOURCES FOR PATTEN'S COURSES
ACC 220
ACC 221
ACC 403