My reflections of how the ACFE began

My Take: Views on the news

Dr. Albrecht will teach the session "Having a Successful Fraud-Fighting Career" at the 25th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference, June 15-20 in San Antonio. The conference will be the last for ACFE Founder and Chairman Dr. Joseph T. Wells, CFE, CPA. — ed.

The year was 1986. Joseph Wells, living in Austin, Texas, was the owner of Wells & Associates, a firm of criminologists specializing in fraud detection and deterrence. His firm had a great practice with many notable clients.

One day, while I was working in my office at Brigham Young University (BYU), he called me on the phone, introduced himself and said that he had read some of my fraud-related research and wanted to meet the author. He said that he'd like to bring a video cameraman to Provo to record some footage of me for two new videos he was making — "The Red Flags of Fraud" and "The Corporate Con." He came, interviewed me for the videos and we became instant friends.

A short time later, Bank of America asked Joe to teach a fraud prevention seminar to their bank leaders in California. While he was easily qualified to have done all the teaching himself, he asked me if I would help. We taught several times for the firm, which soon expanded the training from four hours to two days. Bank of America offered the seminar for several years.

In mid-1988, Joe shared his vision with me that he wanted to start the premier fraud-fighting organization in the world. He explained how he would like to bring together law enforcement, investigators, accountants, auditors, lawyers, criminologists and others interested in fighting fraud so they could learn from each other. This, to me, was one of many conversations we had on visionary topics. However, to Joe, it was his marching orders to move ahead in starting his organization. Later that year, Joe called me to say that he had created the ACFE, and he wanted me to be the first president, which I was for three years.

A man of decisive action

I've learned several things about Joe from my long friendship with him. First, I have never met anyone who is as action-oriented and decisive as he is. When he decides to do something, he moves ahead and doesn't look back.

There were major risks in creating the ACFE, including neglecting his successful consulting practice. Neither he nor anyone else knew that one day this organization would have more than 70,000 members. I truly admired this trait in Joe. Second, I learned that he was altruistic about the purposes of the ACFE. It really wasn't about money; rather, he truly wanted to improve fraud-fighting efforts in our society.

The early days of the ACFE were exciting and challenging. Joe and I often talked about what needed to be done, although he was much more creative than me. He formed an elected Board of Regents to provide membership oversight of the organization. Nancy Bradford from Jacksonville, Fla., was an initial member of the Board of Regents and received the ACFE's first Certified Fraud Examiner certificate.

The ACFE faced an early legal challenge when an organization in North Carolina claimed the CFE credential as its own. Joe and Jim Ratley, then the first program director after working as a fraud examiner with Wells and Associates, successfully withstood the challenge and gained the full legal rights to the credential. (Jim is now the president of the ACFE.)

In 1989, Joe, a well-read and excellent teacher, established the first week-long Fraud Symposium in Austin with 160 attendees. In the initial seminars, he taught criminology and ethics. Jim, also an excellent teacher, taught the investigation sessions. Michael Kramer, also a quality instructor and an attorney from Washington D.C., taught the legal sessions. And I taught the accounting and auditing classes.

Soon we were offering several sessions a year and exposing many people to the ACFE and the tenets of fraud examination. Most of the attendees became members. The association developed other training courses and materials. Joe insisted that the ACFE's training be the best available anywhere.

I was constantly amazed at Joe and Jim at these early seminars. They would teach all day, interact with the attendees late into the night, and be alert and ready to go the next day. Joe, who's an accomplished musician, often would play his guitar for the attendees at dinner parties.

We needed to create a uniform CFE examination. Joe, Jim, Michael and I wrote the first one, and 22 took the first exam. I graded them at BYU. We had to make decisions about pass rates, examination fees, level of difficulty, continuing education requirements for CFEs and other key elements of the certification program. Behind every one of these decisions was Joe's constant mantra to offer high value, be a serious fraud-fighting organization and have high expectations for our certified members.

In the early years, Joe reached out to some of the notables in criminology and fraud-fighting to glean their insights. He involved Donald Cressey, a famous early criminologist who unfortunately died not long after consulting with the ACFE. He recruited Gil Geis, another well-known criminology researcher, who became a subsequent president of the ACFE. Gil died in November of 2012.

Joe also reached out to some TV personalities — most notably Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Robert Stack, both hosts of TV crime-fighting shows who appeared in several of the early ACFE videos.

Joe's desire to make the ACFE the best possible was uncompromising. He reached out to the best minds in the field. He and Jim were (and continue to be) vigilant in offering the best and broadest seminars and conferences, self-study materials, videos and books. Joe authored several of these books and articles, which are must reading for anyone serious about fighting fraud.

Joe, Jack Bologna, Jack Robertson, Gil Geis, I and several others wrote the first Fraud Examiners Manual to help candidates study for the CFE Uniform Examination.

We held the first ACFE conference in 1989. This year, we'll hold the 25th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference, June 15-20 in San Antonio. (This will be Joe's last annual conference.)

Witnessing the gestation and birth of the association is a highlight of my life. During those early years and to this date, I've had the utmost respect and admiration for Joe, Jim and the many others who helped start the ACFE. They continue to be my good friends. We owe them a deep debt of gratitude for the sacrifices and decisions they made to create, nurture and grow an organization that grew into a profession.

W. Steve Albrecht, Ph.D., CFE, CIA, CPA, the ACFE's first president, is the Andersen Alumni Professor of Accountancy in the Marriott School of Management and a Wheatley Fellow at Brigham Young University.

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