Two CSU College of Business alumni were inducted into the Department of Accounting’s Hall of Fame on May 2 during the annual Accounting Awards and Recognition event.
Jeff Hansen (’84), finance director for the city of Golden, and Butch Shoup (’80), owner of V2 CPAs LLC, received the Distinguished Department of Accounting Alumni award.
The annual event is an opportunity for the Department of Accounting to bring together alumni, faculty, students and friends to celebrate the community’s successes. Learn more about this year’s inductees below.
Jeff Hansen, finance director for the city of Golden (class of 1984)
Jeff Hansen has spent nearly four decades working in finance for local governments across Colorado’s Front Range. He started his career with the city of Longmont and worked for the city of Lafayette and the town of Castle Rock before landing at the city of Golden, where he’s worked as finance director for more than 20 years.
Through government work, he feels like he’s able to make an impact.
“Whether it’s naïve or not, when you work for a local government, you feel like you’re making a difference in that community,” he said. “I’ve always been, I would like to think, a good steward of taxpayer dollars. I make sure we spend the money the right way within the proper policies and protocols and that we do things the right way for the benefit of the community.”
It’s also a career that’s offered him an enviable work-life balance. He’s had the time to do things he loves like coaching youth and high school basketball and serving as a high school basketball referee.
“The work itself can be very rewarding, and then the opportunities that it provides me to do things outside of work have also been very rewarding,” he said.
When Hansen was studying accounting at the College of Business, working in government finance wasn’t even on his radar. The more traditional path, he says, was to join a large CPA firm or a big corporation.
That’s a big part of why he returns to his alma mater to speak with accounting students about choosing a career path.
“When I go and talk to the students, part of it is to broaden their awareness of various career opportunities that are out there and available,” he said.
Hansen might not have initially planned to go into government work, but he’s been interested in accounting since high school. Shortly after Hansen learned he would be honored at the Accounting Awards and Recognition event, he reconnected with his high school accounting teacher.
“I was able to connect with him, share with him this award that I’m going to receive and thank him for his part in putting me on that career path,” he said.
Hansen says he felt honored and humbled to be inducted into the Department of Accounting’s Hall of Fame.
“You go through life and try to do the best and do what you think are the right things, and for me, giving back to CSU and talking to the students has just been one of those things that was the right thing for me to do,” he said. “To be recognized for my career and stuff like that, it is really cool.”
Butch Shoup, owner of V2 CPAs LLC (class of 1980)
Butch Shoup describes his career of more than 40 years as “a long and winding road, as The Beatles would say.” He has spent most of his career working as a CPA for firms in Texas and Colorado, but he also had brief stints working in the petrochemical, real estate and oil and gas industries.
What’s made his career exciting is the wide variety of clients he’s worked with over the years.
“Everything I’ve done has been unique, that’s for sure,” Shoup said. “I think that that’s what makes it fun – I’m not doing the same thing every day, day in and day out. I am seeing new things and new clients, and what really is most fulfilling to me is to get to know my clients and figure out what their desires are and help them plan for their future.”
Shoup grew up in Rifle, on Colorado’s Western Slope, and was the first in his family to graduate from college. After taking several business classes in high school, he knew he wanted to be a CPA.
“I guess I was pretty driven as a youngster, as an 18-year-old just out of high school,” he said. “I knew where I wanted to go and I knew what I wanted to do, and nothing was going to stop me.”
He had always dreamed of working in oil and gas, so after graduating from the College of Business, he moved to Houston, Texas, to work for Shell Oil Company. After about two years, he went into public accounting.
“I’ve been in public accounting since ‘83, roughly, and all sorts of firms, big firms, small firms, medium-sized firms,” he said. While in Texas, he took a brief detour away from public accounting to work in petrochemicals. He also earned an MBA in taxation from the University of Houston.
Shoup and his family left Houston for Colorado’s San Luis Valley before settling in the Denver metro area. His longest tenure at an accounting firm was at CliftonLarsonAllen, where he spent about 15 years. He retired from CliftonLarsonAllen in 2015 and opened his own company, V.E. Shoup CPA LLC. In 2020, he partnered with another College of Business alum, Veronica Kepner, to form V2 CPAs LLC.
“I knew what a big firm looked like, and I just decided I wanted to slow down a bit,” he said.
Shoup said he was shocked – but thrilled – to learn he was going to be inducted into the Department of Accounting’s Hall of Fame.
“I really am appreciative of the award and what it stands for, because it does recognize my life’s work,” he said. “For me to be part of the Hall of Fame and seeing the other inductees – I mean, I am truly standing with some accounting giants, and it is really an honor.”
About CSU’s College of Business
The College of Business at Colorado State University is focused on using business to create a better world.
As an AACSB-accredited business school, the College is among the top five percent of business colleges worldwide, providing programs and career support services to more than 2,500 undergraduate and 1,300 graduate students. Faculty help students across our top-ranked on-campus and online programs develop the knowledge, skills and values to navigate a rapidly evolving business world and address global challenges with sustainable business solutions. Our students are known for their creativity, work ethic and resilience—resulting in an undergraduate job offer and placement rate of over 90% within 90 days of graduation.
The College’s highly ranked programs include its Online MBA, which has been ranked the No. 1 program in Colorado by U.S. News and World Report for six years running and achieved No. 16 for employability worldwide from QS Quacquarelli Symonds. The College’s Impact MBA is also ranked by Corporate Knights as a Top 20 “Better World MBA” worldwide.
