Kristen Petroff
Originally from Los Angeles, I moved to Pennsylvania for Love and then to Florida for warmth. The dream was always to live on Oahu and I finally, with my husband, achieved that dream.
Accounting was never the plan. I didn’t have a clue after high school as to what to do with my life. So, I went to work in a food court in a mall as a cashier. One day they asked me to make sandwiches…with mayonnaise…I just couldn’t so I quit. Yes, to me, it is that gross.
After quitting, I interviewed at a travel agency in Beverly Hills for a receptionist position and with my high school computer training, they asked me to work as a junior accountant. I had just turned 18.
By the time I was 25, I was the controller of a 30 million dollar international travel agency in Brentwood, CA. When 80 hour weeks became too much for me, a new mom, I quit, and went into business on my own collecting commissions travel agencies lost to the airlines. Then the airlines capped commissions and I was out of a job.
I ended up at a silk screener/golf club manufacturer that used QuickBooks and Peachtree, but I took a liking to QuickBooks. They went out of business and I went to work for a Public Works Construction Company where I learned MORE about QuickBooks.
In my office one day (next to Male Boss #1’s office with a co-door), I hear Male Boss#2 tell Male Boss#1 that they would never make a female CFO, so I quit.
QuickBooks became my life, and at the time, no one wanted full time bookkeepers, so I filled a niche and have been filling it ever since.
But one can only do the same thing for so long so I diversified and became a reverend, performing small weddings on the island of Oahu.
Then after visiting a feral cat colony, came up with an idea to reduce waste and track the colonies so my non-profit is working on that.
Lastly, for now, I run a Menopause Blog.
Mahalo for reading.