For This Alum, Everything Comes Back to Pace

When Kevin Birdsall was a high school senior, he took an accounting class and immediately was hooked. He knew he wanted to continue to study accounting in college, and since his brother attended Pace just five years earlier, Kevin knew it was a natural fit. While his brother commuted and wasn’t as involved on campus, Kevin threw himself into getting the most out of Pace. Kevin graduated having already secured a full-time offer from PWC, then known as Price Waterhouse, and earned Pace’s community service award.

During the three and a half years he spent at PWC, Kevin never forgot his roots. He stayed in touch with contacts from Pace and returned to campus for events. Kevin acquired a master’s degree at another university, and then spent more than 20 years working as an accountant in the corporate world at companies such as Unilever, Becton Dickinson and Sony.

When Kevin was growing up, he watched his dad working in the 1970s to build a tax preparation business. Initially, Kevin wasn’t interested in his father’s work; but in the 1990s, when computers started entering the business world, Kevin helped his father embrace the new tech. Kevin became more and more involved and began servicing new clients when his father began to cut back. In 2009, when Kevin’s father passed away, Kevin decided to continue the business. Kevin retained existing clients and grew to service new clients. In 2017, he quit his corporate job and started running the business full time.

His father’s aging client base meant that Kevin’s work quickly became focused on estate planning. Not wanting to lose these clients, Kevin earned a certificate in tax and estate planning, and then elected to earn a master’s degree in tax law for accountants. Going back to school opened new opportunities for Kevin, but he still credits his success to Pace.

“Even though Pace hasn’t been involved in the second and third generations of my schooling, everything still comes back to those grass roots for me. Pace is where it all started. Pace set the path.”

A perfect example of Kevin’s lasting ties to Pace is one of his clients. While Kevin was attending Pace, he worked as an orientation coordinator and would come to campus in early August. At this time, the New York Giants used a field on the Pleasantville campus to practice. One of the players on the team at the time, who was on campus at the same time as Kevin, is now one of his clients. Kevin claims that the shared memories of Pace’s Pleasantville campus are what enabled him to secure the former Giant as a client.

A couple of years before he started doing estate planning work, Kevin made his own estate plan. Kevin has included Pace in his estate, naming the university as a beneficiary in his will.

You, too, can leave a legacy at Pace by including us in your estate plan. To learn more, contact Marc Potolsky at mpotolsky@pace.edu or 212-346-1619.