Industry Forward: Eric Beenken and Brendan Kurvers Own The Promise

Got an entrepreneurial spark but haven’t yet aligned your passions with your work? That’s when the joyless daily grind can set in — but also some real creative tension and the possibility for exciting career growth and satisfaction. Eric Beenken and Brenan Kurvers personal stories can show you how industry specialization may be just the thing that turns your spark into a fire. Industry Forward starts now!







[00:00:00]







John: Welcome, CLA family, to Industry Forward, a podcast

designed to tell the stories behind the CLA promise. We create opportunities

when we live the CLA culture, leadership, ownership, entrepreneurship.







[00:00:17]







At the center of CLA promise is our purpose, our why for

existence, to create opportunities for our clients, create opportunities for

our people, and create opportunities for our communities. Industry

specialization propels, enables, and drives all of those. Industry specialization

drives seamless capabilities. Industry specialization drives careers.







[00:00:46]







So why specialize? A better question is, “How do you

get started? And what’s it like when you’re just getting going?” So today,

we’ve invited Eric Beenken from our River Valley region, specializing

agribusiness but really in the pork industry, and Brendan Kurvers from our

Minneapolis office. He’s part of the M&D team but has been taken on the

leadership of driving our food and beverage practice. Welcome to the mic, guys.







[00:01:15]







Eric: Thanks, John.







[00:01:16]







Brendan: Thanks, John.







[00:01:17]







John: Glad to have you here. I’m gonna start with a really

simple question if I can today, just to get started. Let’s start with your

personal story. Brendan, tell us a little bit about yourself.







[00:01:27]







Brendan: Yeah, certainly. Grew up in the south side of

Minneapolis here, so grew up in Burnsville, Minnesota, which is about three

suburbs out of Minneapolis. Wound up at North Dakota State in Fargo. So spent

some time in North Dakota and then found myself back in Minneapolis, working

for CLA shortly thereafter college. Really got my start with CLA in 2012 with a

manufacturing, distribution internship.







[00:01:52]







And then found myself back at CLA in 2013 with another

summer internship, and then finally fulltime–As Dudley Ryan would say, I was a

seasonal intern. But found my way back fulltime in 2014. And that’s where I

really nestled into the manufacturing, distribution group.







[00:02:09]







John: So why accounting and finance? Why CPA?







[00:02:13]







Brendan: Yeah. It’s an interesting story, John. I actually

really went up to North Dakota State to be a pharmacist.







[00:02:19]







John: A pharmacist?







[00:02:20]







Brendan: Yeah. So a little bit of a pivot from what a CPA

does on a day-to-day. But at the end of the day, where I found my passion, when

I was in high school, was helping people. And the easiest thing that I could

really see was something that was frontline and center for me, my mom went

through two bouts of cancer when I was growing up. And I saw the immense amount

of drugs that were going into her body to combat this cancer.







And something, for me,