Q. You were enjoying a successful career at Young Brothers when you decided to take the job at Catholic Charities earlier this year. What prompted you to make the change?

A. I was in the for-profit world my whole professional life from the day I started at Coopers & Lybrand. I was looking for something more in my life, and really wanted to something more with a sense of purpose that would allow me to really extend myself in terms of reaching the community. I'm a firm believer that first, you have to take care of yourself. You have to develop your own self-esteem, and I think that allowed me to be a good accountant and grow in an organization. I also really feel strongly about taking care of others. And I have a strong desire to serve. I think that comes from my parochial upbringing. It's trying to find a balance between one's self and others, the community and the environment, and in my case, because I'm Catholic.

Q. After six months on the job, how would you say the transition is going?

A. It's been wonderful. I pinch myself — I feel like I'm not working. It's like a blessing to be here. It's a lot of work, mind you. The nonprofit world has its own set of challenges, but there is such a strong sense of purpose here. When you look at who founded Catholic Charities Hawaii, it was the Maryknoll Sisters. And when you go back to the founding nature of why the Maryknoll Order came about, they were there to help the most poor and vulnerable.

Q. Do you approach your world differently now that you are at a nonprofit?

A. Everybody needs an accountant, whether you're in the for-profit work or the nonprofit world. Everybody has to manage their finances. In this situation, the only difference is that the stewardship is with people who have given you money from their heart and soul to use it wisely. In the corporate world, you also have to use it wisely because there are investors out there who want the corporate entity to do well. Here, it's no different; you have money that has been given from the heart and you want to make sure you use those dollars wisely. In that sense, going from one entity to another, to me, it's the same. I still have to deal with the banks, we still need to make sure our books are accurate and timely.

Q. What are some of the adjustments you've had to make?

A. I think the greatest challenge I've found is that we rely so heavily on support of our community in terms of funding. I'm not used to that. If we need a new system (in the corporate world), we can charge higher rates. In our case, we have programs where our fuel costs have been rising, where we have to drive the elderly to the hospital and their doctors. We don't necessarily have the money to cover that increase in fuel costs and we have to find those dollars. Our challenge is how to work smarter with the minimum cost because we are limited in our funding.

Q. How about the difference of scale between a large corporation and a nonprofit organization?

A. I used to live in a world of, "OK, it's just a thousand dollars, don't worry about it." Or, "It's just $10,000, don't worry about it," because the bottom line is millions of dollars. In this organization, pennies matter, and we try to be very good stewards and we try to spend every penny wisely. So that's an adjustment.

Q. How is Catholic Charities faring under the heightened regulatory scrutiny that was brought about by the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation?

A. Sarbanes-Oxley has expanded itself to nonprofits. It goes back to stewardship. You have a fiduciary responsibility to be good stewards of the funds that are given to you, and Sarbanes-Oxley requires greater scrutiny in terms of making sure it's done correctly. For all nonprofits, it's a challenge, because generally we don't have the most sophisticated systems. This organization, at least from my perspective of having been here for six months, is extremely well-run for a nonprofit organization.

Q. Do you ever feel like you miss the corporate world?

A. I get people who come up to me and say, "Why did you leave your job? You worked at Young Brothers. Why did you leave? Are you crazy?" And I look at them and I say, "Sometimes there's more to a job than a paycheck." You have to be able to go to a place where your heart will sing. And in this place, because of what we do and the impact we have ... it's really not a job, it's more of a ministry. You feel that among everyone in this organization. People are not here because they're going to clock in and clock out. I've been very impressed by the people who work here. And I think that's why it's so joyous.