I spent nearly twelve years at Loveland Ski Areas, starting as the controller and eventually running the entire finance operation as CFO. Loveland is a mid-sized business with real complexity — multiple revenue streams, seasonal cash flow swings, capital improvements, a full HR and payroll function, and the kind of financial management that requires getting your hands into every part of the operation. That's where I learned what it means to be the person responsible for all of it, not just the person who reviews the reports.
After Loveland, I took the Finance Director role at Keystone Science School, a nonprofit in Summit County. The work was different — fund accounting, grant compliance, donor restrictions, board reporting — but the core skill was the same: accurate, hands-on financial management that leadership could trust without a second thought. Working inside a nonprofit taught me how much these organizations need senior financial talent and how rarely they can afford it full-time.
I started Shirey CPA to bring that depth to small businesses and nonprofits on a fractional basis. My clients get the kind of accounting and financial management they'd get from a full-time controller or finance director — month-end close, reconciliation, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, tax planning — without carrying a full-time salary. That work is delivered remotely; my clients are spread across the country.
The second piece of the practice is newer. Over the last year and a half I have spent a lot of time figuring out how to use AI tools well in my own work — not as a buzzword and not as a shortcut, but as something that genuinely changes what one person can carry. The version of me from two years ago could not have managed the client load I manage now. The tools made the difference. Once I got there, it became obvious that small business teams in this part of the country were going to need someone to help them work through the same learning curve, and that the person did not need to be a software engineer or an AI architect — it needed to be someone who could explain the foundations in plain language. That is what DIY-AI training is.
I am based in Salida, Colorado. The CPA practice serves clients across the United States remotely. The DIY-AI training is in-person for small business teams across central and western Colorado — Chaffee, Eagle, Lake, Summit, Pitkin, Fremont, Clear Creek, Gunnison, and Saguache counties.
The accounting work is hands-on. I manage the close, reconcile the accounts, write the financial narratives, and build the budgets. This isn't an advisory practice where I review someone else's work and make recommendations — I do the work.
The training work is the same disposition pointed at a different problem. I sit down with your team and we work through the foundations together. I am not handing you a deck and walking out. I am teaching the basics, in plain English, with examples drawn from your actual work.