A Stand-up Guy:

Matthew Schaefer, CPA, CGMA

By Marcia Tillett-Zinzow

Matt Schaefer can accurately be defined as “a standup guy” — and we’re not talking about comedy. We mean that he seems to be a “straightforward man of good character,” according to online dictionaries, and his background vouches for him. He’s a Wisconsin-educated banking executive and former Navy man who has been married for 19 years. He and his wife have one daughter, and the family lives in the Wisconsin Dells, where they partake in numerous family activities. But the one thing that makes him stand out to us is that he is this year’s chair of the WICPA board of directors.

Schaefer was born and raised (through 7th grade) in Dolton, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago. His parents’ families all lived there, too. But, like many Illinois transplants to Wisconsin, his folks had vacation property here — in the Wisconsin Dells.

“My parents had a 14x72-foot mobile home that was great in the summer. We had family and friends come up and just had a good time. The thought was that we would move up there year-round before I went to high school, so we moved up just before my 8th grade year,” he said.

Like many of the local kids, Schaefer worked a variety of different summer jobs in the Dells and had fun doing it. But after he graduated from Wisconsin Dells High School in 1994, he decided to do something more serious.

The U.S. Navy

“I had a cousin who was in the Navy — on the West Coast — and I was hearing about all the exciting things that he had done, and I thought it sounded like a really great option,” Schaefer said. “You know, when you’re 18, you want to explore. You want to spread your wings and see what else is out there in the world.”

So he enlisted right after high school. His Navy service took him aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier U.S.S. George Washington, which at the time was docked in Norfolk, Virginia. He spent four years on board and was frequently deployed for military exercises.

“We’d be in the Caribbean for a month and a half, and then we’d spend six months in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf,” he said. “This was back in the mid-’90s, when the U.S. still had issues with Iraq and the fallout from Bosnia, so there were a lot of interesting things happening in the Gulf while I was there. For example, my ship participated in Operation Southern Watch, in which we enforced U.N. sanctions against Iraq.”

Schaefer said he enjoyed his time in the Navy, made a lot of great friends and had some great experiences. He could have stayed in for the 20 years necessary to retire with full benefits, but having a family and being there for them was more important to him.

“The plan was to get out in four years, go to school, get married and start a family. I wanted to spend time with my family, be in the kids’ lives and go to their games on a daily basis instead of having to hear about them in phone calls,” he said.

College and accounting

After honorable discharge from the Navy, Schaefer enrolled in college at UW–Eau Claire. After two years there, he transferred to UW–Platteville.

“I had started seeing this girl about three months before I got out of the Navy, and she lived in Ohio. I soon found out that it’s a long drive from Eau Claire to Ohio. So we would meet halfway, in Portage, Indiana, and then we would either drive back to Ohio together or back to Eau Claire or to the Dells. It got to be a lot of traveling.”

The “girl” is now his wife, Laura, to whom he’s been married for 19 years. The two often joke about all the traveling they did back then just to spend time together.

“When we drive back to Ohio to see her parents, we reminisce about driving on the interstate, pointing out the place where we broke down once, that restaurant that used to be there — just noticing how things have changed over the years.”

Schaefer completed his bachelor’s degrees in accounting and business administration at UW–Platteville in 2002. In 2008, he became licensed as a CPA.

When professionals are asked what inspired them to become CPAs, many answer in one of two ways. They either say, “I was always good at math,” or they say, “My dad (or other relative or friend), who was a CPA, encouraged me.” Schaefer’s answer wasn’t all that much different. He knew he liked accounting and finance, and while he noted that numbers didn’t always like him, he always liked numbers. But it was the challenge of becoming a CPA that truly inspired him — and the inspiration came during an eight-month internship he did with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

“I got to know different people who were in the profession, whether in public or private accounting, and I got to see how fulfilling that career was to those people,” he said. “I had met a CPA who was in a second career in state government, and it kind of sold me on the whole thing. It just confirmed that I wanted to be part of that group and work toward the designation. And it has been really fulfilling.”

Getting into banking

Toward the end of his college education, providence stepped in when a friend of the family asked Schaefer’s parents and future in-laws if Matt would be interested in “getting into banking.” So Schaefer interviewed with two gentlemen from the Bank of Wisconsin Dells and had a job waiting for him right out of college. He began as a loan officer in January 2003, writing both commercial and consumer loans and just getting to know people and the community. He then worked within regulatory compliance for a number of years before moving into the credit area.

“That ultimately took me to the position of chief credit officer and member of the senior management team,” Schaefer said. “We make sure that we write guidelines for the lenders to make sure they are corresponding to our loan policy. We have different standards that we create just to make sure that we create safety and soundness for the bank.”

He has been with the bank for 20 years. One year after he got there, he married that girl from Ohio. Schaefer and his wife have one daughter — Cora — who is 11 years old now.

“A lot of our time is devoted to our daughter, who is a swimmer and also plays soccer,” Schaefer said. “So we go to swim meets, soccer matches — really, it’s about being Dad and being a spectator of Cora’s sports.”

In his spare time, Schaefer partakes in a number of sports, especially those that include being outside. The family loves tent camping and hiking as well as golf in the summer, and he and Laura scuba dive.

“We’re pretty limited with scuba in Wisconsin, but if we’re traveling somewhere warm, we’ll typically scuba dive as well,” he said.

In the winter, the whole family hits the slopes. Living in the Dells, they can easily get to one of the many ski resorts Wisconsin has to offer, though they most often ski at Cascade and Devil’s Head, which are closer to where they live.

“But sometimes we’ll go up north to the Upper Peninsula and ski Blackjack, Indian Head or Powder Horn,” he said. “We’ll also ski out west in Colorado, and last year I took my daughter out to Montana to ski at Big Sky for the first time. We flew into Boseman, which is a great town: the university, the downtown area. I really enjoyed being there.”

Schaefer has been on the WICPA board of directors since 2016 and has served on the Public Policy Committee since 2012. He also volunteers for St. Clare Health Foundation in Baraboo, serving as treasurer of the foundation’s board of directors and as a member of the Finance Committee. His term as chair of the WICPA board will run through the 2023–2024 fiscal year, which began May 1.