Lee Riordan BBA '76
Lee Riordan receives the 2024 UW-Whitewater Distinguished Alumni Award for Professional Achievement
Written by Kristine Zaballos | Images submitted
Lee Riordan may have followed a traditional path to UW-Whitewater, but where his education has taken him after graduation is anything but.
The Shorewood native, who was co-captain of his high school football team, came to Whitewater because it was affordable, close to home, and had not just a great football team but also a well-reputed business school.
What he experienced on campus — from the accounting education he received to the awareness he gained about people from diverse backgrounds — led to a decades-long career with Arthur Andersen and Deloitte, one distinguished for his passionate advocacy of accessibility within the profession.
Riordan, who earned a BBA in accounting in 1976, is a recipient of University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award for Professional Achievement, presented to a graduate of UW-Whitewater who has exhibited distinguished professional, personal and career achievement, and is recognized for accomplishments in their field.
It was Riordan’s father who first pointed him toward accounting.
“My dad went to college, but he was an author, not a businessman,” said Riordan. “He suggested I major in accounting because he thought I’d make a good CEO and he knew lots of CEOs with an accounting background.”
Riordan took to accounting almost immediately, which he found nice and challenging. He became interested in his eventual specialization in tax accounting through Jim Fischer, his first tax professor.
On campus he was a member of several business organizations and lived in the residence halls for all four years, including a stint as an R.A. in Wells Hall. His first semester was at Arey Hall, where he was one of only four white men in a dorm filled with Black students. But when he left the residence hall and entered Carlson, the business building at the time, he saw virtually no students of color — and very few women. He was curious about that, and that curiosity later sparked a dedication to helping under-represented students and encouraging diversity in all its forms in the firms he would work in to better meet the complex needs and situations of his clients and the profession.
Before he could step firmly into his professional life, however, his dad had more advice for him.
“He said I should think about going to law school, because he’d read that the average lawyer makes $45,000 a year,” said Riordan.
So after he graduated, he went right to law school at Marquette University, where he took and passed all four parts of the CPA exam his first semester. He studied general law and clerked at the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office. When it came time to interview for jobs in 1979, he found he liked the people at Arthur Andersen, where he worked for 23 years, making partner in 1990. He helped to train hundreds of employees, consulted on client cases throughout the world, and hired and mentored scores of UW-Whitewater students as interns and graduates as employees. With his expertise in tax and law, he was well respected in the field for his insight into helping clients manage emerging issues.
In the early 2000s, he was forced to lead his firm through an existential crisis. Enron, an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas, that employed approximately 20,600 staff and claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion, declared bankruptcy in 2001. In March of 2002, the Department of Justice indicted Arthur Andersen, Enron’s auditor.
“The Milwaukee office had 500 employees I was responsible for as a leadership partner,” said Riordan. “And every other accounting firm was going after our clients.”
Fortunately, Deloitte came up with a solution that allowed most of the employees and clients to join the firm. Arthur Andersen LLP went defunct in 2002.
“Life is about experiences, and that was a really interesting experience,” said Riordan. “And we made it through.”
In addition to his long-term success as a leader at both Arthur Andersen and Deloitte, Riordan has been deeply involved in community work related to the arts and humanitarian causes. He’s also served on the law alumni board at Marquette University. And he turned some of his considerable energy back to UW-Whitewater.
“UW-Whitewater laid a foundation for me to be successful,” said Riordan. “I learned good study habits there, and I wanted to pay it forward.”
One of the fellow Marquette Law School graduates that Riordan hired and mentored at Deloitte was Paul Nylen, who worked at the firm for 5 years and is now an assistant professor of accounting at UW-Whitewater.
“I am delighted in what he is doing at UW-Whitewater, including starting up the bitcoin and digital asset programs” said Riordan. “He’s a very creative guy, and we are fortunate to have him as a faculty member at the school. I was sad to see he was leaving Deloitte, but ecstatic to see him at UW-Whitewater.”
“In my opinion, Lee is the best example of an alumni that our students can aspire to,” said Nylen. “He grew up a Wisconsin native, managed the largest tax practice in the state, hired hundreds of bright students, navigated company turmoil, and is still actively engaged with UW-Whitewater.”
“If our accounting department can graduate just one accounting major per year who is as thoughtful and impactful as Lee,” he added. “Our jobs as faculty will be a success.”
Riordan is a long-time and regular contributor to UW-Whitewater’s accounting program, which is a top-ten major at the university, funding an accounting scholarship that encourages accessibility within the accounting field — a meaningful and impactful way to address the lack of diversity he’d first witnessed at Carlson Hall.
The Riordan Accounting Scholarship has been a great source of satisfaction, according to Riordan, citing an awards night in April where every scholarship recipient shows up and donors like him get to meet the students.
Abbie Daly, who is chair of the Department of Accounting, invites the parents of the scholarship recipients as well.
“Having a dad tell me the impact of a gift is pretty impactful,” said Riordan. “It’s pretty cool. I give Abbie a lot of credit for doing that.”
Accounting student Aidan Nabi, left, who received a scholarship from alum Lee Riordan. (Submitted photo)
Aidan Nabi, an accounting major from Fond du Lac who has been named to the Dean’s List six times, is one of the recipients of Riordan’s scholarship.
“The generosity of this scholarship has significantly helped me focus on my hardest year, which involves eight accounting classes,” said Aidan. “It has also inspired me to, one day, give back in the same way to future Warhawks!”
“Lee has long supported the UW-Whitewater accounting program and our students,” said Daly. “Through his scholarship, he impacts one student at a time, encouraging and enabling them to pursue a successful career in accounting. He inspires our students, both as to what they can accomplish when starting with an accounting degree from UW-Whitewater and how to pay generosity forward.”
Riordan is now retired and lives in one of the oldest homes in Fox Point. His daughter, Kelly, is a writer and his son, Mike, works in IT.
Riordan is happy to wake up every day with nothing on the calendar, allowing him to enjoy the view of Lake Michigan outside of his windows and to focus on his philanthropy and his art collection.
