It was 36 hours before their competition, and the presentation to win a regional competition still wasn’t finished.

‘We rehearsed in the airport, on the plane and in our hotel room the night before and the morning of the competition,’ Jamie Lamacchia, a junior accounting major said.

But the hard work – even short notice – paid off for Lamacchia, along with five other Martin J. Whitman School of Management students, who placed second in a regional audit competition Feb. 16.

The students were part of SU’s first team to compete in the annual Deloitte Audit Case Competition. The team competed regionally against University of Villanova, Rutgers University and the University of Connecticut and finished second.

For the last 13 years the Deloitte Foundation, the non-profit arm of the accounting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, has held a national audit competition. Each school is given a unique tax audit case, and a team of six students puts together a presentation of how to remedy the situation.

SU’s team was selected three weeks before the competition by assistant professor Kofi Appiah Okyere, the faculty advisor to the team. From his Accounting 356 class he chose six junior class students: Ellen Firth, Jamie Lamacchia, Ahmed Madry, Rob Peterson, Ellen Robinson and Justin Zucker.

‘We were random accounting majors picked out of a group, but once we were out together we put on an amazing presentation,’ Robinson said. ‘The Thursday before, we didn’t think we’d do well, but we made Syracuse proud.’

With just 36 hours left before the team was scheduled to be in New York City for the competition, it was still juggling with the presentation. The team members had midterms during the week prior to the competition on Feb. 16, and the extra time spent with the team was taking its toll on the students.

‘We’d meet once a day at the beginning for an hour, but toward the end we’d meet in the afternoon and night for at least four hours,’ Firth said. ‘The last week before we went was midterm week. Everybody was overwhelmed, but it was unbelievable. Villanova went, and they had the same problem, and they were horrible, so it says something that we put out that much effort.’

Working into the night, with Professor Okyere at its side, the team put together a PowerPoint presentation and Thursday before leaving, the team finally began to practice its full presentation without scripts. For Zucker, the difference in the team’s success was Okyere and his dedication.

‘Not many teachers stay at night well in to the early hours and professor (Okyere) was at almost every meeting for two weeks straight,’ said Zucker. ‘Translating from school books to real life experience was very new, and he kept us on track. He was always there helping with presentation skills.’

The team tied the presentation together and traveled to New York that weekend for the competition – even though the presentation still wasn’t finalized.

That afternoon the team went to the financial district, and, in a 20-minute presentation, it displayed its audit case in front of four partners from Deloitte’s national headquarters.

‘We were pretending we were auditors and the panel was the client, we treated them like we were representing them,’ Robinson said. ‘We showed them financial accounting standards, official rules for accounting and why that was the right move to use. We explained tax benefits and why our way was beneficial.’

The SU team presented first but were bested by UConn, which won the regional competition and continued to the national competition in Scottsdale, Arizona last Wednesday. Brigham Young University won the national title in Scottsdale.

Even without a win, for the team members, the competition was still a worthwhile experience.

‘The competition was great, and I got an opportunity for five new friends. We met everyday for two weeks and became close,’ Zucker said.

Zucker said the team also became close with professor Okyere; even going shopping to buy Syracuse-colored ties for the competition. In addition to new friends the team also gained valuable real life experience, at times absent from school.

‘It will definitely help my resume, it looks good that I went above and beyond,’ said Robinson ‘I think it’s good to look at a different perspective of the accounting world. In school you do a lot alone, but working in a group and feeling things out together – that will help me a lot.’

mwwoolle@syr.edu