Petersen wins CPA distinguished service award Petersen wins CPA distinguished service award (June 28, 2000)

Robert Petersen, of Petersen Associates, CPAs, at 3000 Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, has received the distinguished service award from the California Society of Certified Public Accountants, based in Redwood City.

"Very few members of our profession have been so passionately committed to contributing time, skill and leadership to further the cause of CPAs, and, by inference, that of California taxpayers and small businesses," says Thomas Iino, chairman of the selection committee.

Mr. Petersen, 61, a former president of the CPA society, was the founding chairman of the organization's State Government Relations Committee. He has worked to improve conformance of California and federal tax rules and to simplify the filing process, says Mr. Iino.

"The general perception is that CPAs benefit from a complex tax code," says Mr. Petersen, "but that's not true. Overall, we're in favor of rational simplification, for the benefit of taxpayers."

Mr. Petersen served as treasurer for California Representative Tom Campbell's successful campaign and says he is working with the congressman to introduce new tort-reform legislation.

In 1997 he served on a task force of the Council of Foundations that conducted a study into how charitable organizations would be affected if the nation switched to a flat-tax or sales tax system.

Mr. Petersen is author of the Research Institute of America's "California Tax Handbook," and is a frequent instructor for the California CPA Education Foundation.

He was president of the CPA Education Foundation in 1984. He cut his professional teeth as an accountant with the international accounting firm of Price Waterhouse. He worked for Price Waterhouse for nearly two decades, rising to senior partner.

He currently serves as a director of the Sierra Health Foundation, a nonprofit organization with $180 million in funding for health care programs and research in Northern California.

He is president and a trustee of the Global Health Foundation; chair of the Research Institute of America National Subscribers Advisory Board; and an executive committee member of the Lincoln Club of Northern California.

In 1988, Petersen and his wife Carol co-founded the Saratoga Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides supplementary funding for public elementary and high schools in the city of Saratoga.