When Ben Sander graduated from South Peace Senior Secondary School in 1975, he was set on becoming a commercial pilot. He’d been accepted to a three-year aviation program at Selkirk College in Castlegar and had even registered to join the Royal Canadian Air Force as a backup plan. Little did he know that the ripple effects of a global crisis would soon reach him in his small hometown of Dawson Creek. It was the oil embargo of 1973-1974, and Canada was hit hard.

“When I registered at Selkirk, the graduates of the aviation program had 100% employment,” says Ben. “Then there was the oil crisis and the crash, and 100% dropped to barely 1%.”

He remembers getting the bad news one fateful afternoon in May.

“It was about a week before I was supposed to leave for Castlegar,” he says. “I was standing there with the the letter from Selkirk, and my mother asked me what I was going to do. I said I didn’t really want to go into the air force. She said ‘Go to university.’”

Ben took his mother’s advice and pursued a bachelor of commerce degree at the University of Alberta. After graduating in 1979, he registered for the legacy CA program and began articling with Campbell Sharp in Grande Prairie. He had no immediate plans of returning to BC, but an unexpected offer to work with Winspear, a national firm in Dawson Creek, soon changed his mind.

“The opportunity just kind of unfolded,” he says.

Ben and his wife Linda, who also hails from Dawson Creek, subsequently relocated and set about building a life in their small hometown. (Now married for 42 years, they have two children, both of whom live in Grande Prairie. Daughter Nikki is a teacher, and son Ty is a CPA in Alberta.) Returning to BC presented a major challenge, however: Because Ben had registered for the accounting program in Alberta, he had to complete his education there.

“I actually commuted and did all my courses in Edmonton even though I lived and articled in Dawson Creek,” Ben explains.

There were other challenges as well, including a major merger.

“A few months after I started articling with Winspear, I was employed by Deloitte,” he recounts. “That was probably one of the biggest mergers in Canada at that time, as both were huge national firms. It was … an interesting time.”

By the time Ben qualified as a CA in Alberta in 1985, two of Winspear’s three partners had left Deloitte to form Slowinski Winters, a small private firm in Dawson Creek. Ben joined them, and within two years, he was admitted to partnership. Then in 1990, he decided to branch out on his own, launching B. A. Sander. The sole proprietorship has since evolved into Sander Rose Bone Grindle, a regional partnership with three full-time offices in Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, and Grande Prairie. Combined, these offices have five partners and more than 35 staff.

For Ben, the decision to open an office in Alberta was a no-brainer.

“Dawson Creek is only six kilometres away from the Alberta border, so we’re essentially Alberta,” he says. “As for Grande Prairie—it’s a very large city with a population of about 70,000, and it services an additional 30,000 people, roughly, if you include the smaller communities surrounding it.”

By comparison, Dawson Creek and Fort St. John are home to approximately 13,000 and 22,000 people, respectively.

“Grande Prairie is the mini-Texas of Alberta—a very wild, wild West city with lots of big oil companies,” he adds. “Basically, if you’re involved in oil and gas, you’re in Grande Prairie. So, it was always my vision to have offices in all three cities—they’re the ‘northern corridor.’”

Operating in this northern corridor makes for a unique clientele.

“In addition to oil and gas clients, we have huge corporate farmers—one who farms 50 miles by 50 miles,” he says. “Environmentalists would probably see the cattle ranches and the oil and gas refineries as a really bad situation, but I see it as a balance—a subtle balance. That’s the dynamic of the Peace now.”

Ben strives to educate others about life in the Peace Region.

“I think most people don’t understand what’s actually happening in the Peace,” he says. “First of all, there’s the geography. The majority of BC’s population lives in the south, but 90% of BC’s geography is north of Hope. You have to go 400 kilometres straight north of Prince George, over the Rockie Mountain range, just to get to the Peace. And there’s still hundreds of miles up there before you hit the Northwest Territories.

“Second, the Peace Region generates substantially all of the hydro electricity for BC,” he adds. “And it’s green energy. It’s water-related. It’s dam-related. It’s wind-generated as well.”

Sander Rose Bone Grindle also has a heavy focus on government audits, which gives Ben a first-hand view of many regional government projects around the South and North Peace areas. He shares his in-depth insights as a member of CPABC’s Regional Check-Up Advisory Committee and as a regional media spokesperson for the accounting profession—roles in which he has volunteered for over a decade.

“I really appreciate the opportunity to provide a northern perspective,” he says. “I’m able to share the talk of the street—what’s happening now. I love doing that, and I know a lot of people in the Peace take it to heart.”

While his contributions to CPABC’s public affairs program are his most long-standing, Ben has actually been active in the accounting profession since 1988, when he joined the Peace River CA Association. He credits the late Jim McPhail, FCPA, FCA, a partner at Winspear, for sparking his passion for volunteerism, both in the profession and in the community.

“Jim challenged me to get involved, and he led by example,” says Ben. “I loved the guy—he became a very close friend.”

Throughout his career, Ben has served on a variety of boards in the community, including the BC Seniors Games, the BC Winter Games, and the Northern BC Winter Games. He has also served on numerous legacy and CPABC committees, including the CEO Search & Selection Committee and the CPABC Public Practice Committee. Additionally, he served for eight years on what is now CPA Insurance Plans West, helping to establish governance procedures and a formal investment policy. For his myriad contributions and professional achievements, he was elected to Fellowship in 2010.

Two years later, Ben joined the board of Northern Health. The experience, he says, deepened his own understanding of life in the Peace Region.

“I travelled all around the province with Northern Health, and it helped me visualize how dynamically different we are, even in the north.”

Formed in 2001, Northern Health currently serves approximately 300,000 people in an area greater than 600,000 square kilometres—from Atlin in the north to Quesnel in the south, and from Haida Gwaii in the west to Valemount in the east.

During his seven-year tenure on the board, Ben also chaired its Audit and Finance Committee.

“We had to provide so much assistance to small communities across the region, many First Nations and Indigenous, and we were so lucky to have a truly dynamic executive group. That’s what kept me motivated staying there—that and the fact that there’s so much work that needs to be done.”

Simply getting around is one of the biggest obstacles to delivering health services to the small isolated communities that punctuate the vast landscape.

“To fly to Prince George, for example, you have to fly to Vancouver and then back up,” he says. “When Northern Health held meetings in Terrace, I drove there, because even though it took 12 hours each way, it was still quicker than flying. I don’t know—maybe I was crazy—but I really enjoyed it.”

One initiative of which Ben is particularly proud is a unique busing system introduced by Northern Health to make medical care more accessible—a system that became all the more vital when Greyhound stopped operating in the region.

“The Greyound busline was how people from these smaller communities used to travel in that corridor,” he explains. “Now, if you’re an individual in Fort Nelson, say, and you need to see a specialist in Prince George, you can get on a Northern Health bus for $60. And your family can come too. I’m proud to have been involved. The people and the feeling of making a difference—it sounds so corny, but it’s true. I wish I could have stayed on the board. I really enjoyed it.”

As it is, Ben did stay on for an extra 10 months after Minister of Health Adrian Dix personally asked him to extend his tenure. Now, however, he’s focused on his role as CPABC board chair.

“I just feel honoured to be able to be involved in what’s happening right now,” he says, “because there is a lot happening.”

In addition to his role on the CPABC board and various provincial and national committees, Ben belongs to the Western Regional Forum, which is comprised of BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The Forum, which meets quarterly, oversees the CPA Western School of Business. As such, its members worked with the Competency Map Committee on recent changes to competency requirements.

“Factoring in data analytics is just absolutely necessary,” he says, “and I think training is going to have to be more heavily loaded for AI.”

Training is a particular focus for Ben, because his firm has long provided a strong training ground for its students. At any given time, it has roughly eight to 12 students registered.

“We still do most of the audits for government in the Peace, and we do the colleges,” he says. “And to audit, you need students. We can give our students exposure right away, because we have the audit hours. We found very quickly that the lifeblood of our organization is actually our student pool. They keep you current, they keep you on your edge, and they keep you involved.”

Ben adds, however, that recruitment is an ever-growing challenge.

“Statistically, fewer than 20% of CPABC members are in public practice,” he points out. “The vast majority of this 20% are sole-proprietors, and the field is narrowing. We’re competing with the 80% population in industry, and when students interview for positions now, they’re not as quick to want to see someone from public practice. It’s becoming a big issue.”

There’s another big issue as well: convincing students to stay once they’ve finished their education.

“The minute students are finished school and pass the CFE, they typically leave,” he adds. “They move back to the major centres and the big firms take them. It’s very frustrating, timing-wise, because we need them to stay on as CPA managers in our very busy firm. But even large salary increases are usually not enough to make them stay.”

These challenges are top of mind for Ben, as is the changing nature of auditing itself.

“Artificial intelligence is changing everything right now, and it’s going to have a huge impact on auditing,” he says. “Not 10 years from now—two years from now. So we need to make sure that we have young people coming up in the pipeline who are prepared for this new world.

“I think that’s what’s really driving me right now,” he continues. “What is the profession going to look like? Not just for public practitioners, but for all of us. Artificial intelligence, branding, ethics, protecting the public, enhancing our credibility as a self-regulating profession—these will be major points of focus during my term as chair. We have an incredibly diverse and incredibly talented board, so this year is going to be interesting. There’s just so much I want to accomplish.”

It’s one of his last big professional endeavours before retirement, and as he looks back at the path that led him here, Ben cracks a smile.

“You know, my life is just a series of accidents,” he says. “I laugh at that every once and a while—becoming an accountant—because it was at the 11th hour that I changed my career path. I think I was destined to be in this profession.”

Click here to see CPABC's 2019-2020 Board of Directors.

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