Member, California Society of Certified Public Accountants; American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. BACKGROUND Rick Hoting grew up in Long Beach and attended the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA, where he majored in Accounting and Computer Science, graduating summa cum laude in 1987. Rick sat for the May 1987 Uniform CPA Examination and received the Elijah Watt Sells Award for receiving one of the top 100 scores in the nation out of 65,000 candidates. In August 1987 he joined the accounting firm of Windes & McClaughry, a large local firm with over 100 professionals in Long Beach. While working for Windes & McClaughry, Rick continued his education in the evenings, earning two master's degrees, an MBA from California State University Long Beach in 1990 and a Masters in Taxation from Golden Gate University in 1991. Rick then entered Loyola Law School. At Loyola Law School he was the highest ranked student in the evening division and was presented with the Lloyd Tevis Award for being the top student in the entire graduating class in the commercial law curriculum. He received his Juris Doctor degree cum laude in 1995. At Windes & McClaughry, Rick spent his time exclusively in its Tax Department, where he supervised the annual income tax preparation for a wide range of individual clients, real estate partnerships, corporations and related trusts and individuals. He also prepared estate tax returns and consulted regarding large corporate multi-state returns and international tax issues. In December 2004, Rick left Windes & McClaughry to focus more on legal matters and less on accounting concerns. Rick has assisted clients with trusts, wills, and estate planning matters, with organizing new corporations and limited liability companies and handling business transactions. Rick brings back to Taubman, Simpson, Young & Sulentor expertise in complicated individual, corporate, partnership and fiduciary income tax matters.