MY PATH
Evan Dickens, CPA
Partner
Evan is the leader of the Employee Benefit Audit team and Co-Leader of the Construction Niche. He works with a variety of small business, investment funds and individual clients.
As a Business Management major in college, Evan Dickens didn’t start out to become an accountant. However, accounting was one of the core classes and he found that it just made the most sense to him. The help and guidance of some wonderful professors at George Fox University helped to lay out the path and his major was changed to Accounting!
When looking for internships in college, one of those professors said, “you may want to look into Jones & Roth.” The recruiting process was a little different back in 2001: Evan printed out his resume, drove over to the Hillsboro office, and asked about possible internships. That day he got to meet with a manager, as well as a partner, and the next week was offered an internship. Once out of college, he had the opportunity to work for a ‘Big 4’ firm, but chose Jones & Roth and has stayed ever since.
Early in his career, Evan explored a variety of industry and technical niches, including municipal governments, nonprofits, healthcare, financial institutions and more. He discovered a passion for working with contractors and small business owners. And, after working on several employee benefit plan audits, he saw an opportunity for the firm to become experts in the area and with his guidance, the niche has grown to be one of the largest EBP Auditors in the state, with clients across the country. “That was a chance for me to create a path and a focus for my career,” he says, and it was something I never expected to enjoy working on.”