by Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

NNSL (Oct 29/97) - After the evening meal, for many folks it's time to relax and maybe watch the tube or have a snooze.

Not so for YWCA finance director and volunteer accountant extraordinaire Terry Brown.

Many evenings, the chartered management accountant can be found giving his time to one of several organizations.

To recognize his contributions to the profession and the community, he was made a Fellow of the Society of Chartered Management Accountants of Canada.

Colleagues and friends gathered at the Yellowknife Inn Friday to celebrate.

Brown said after most family dinners, he would quietly head out to "attend another meeting."

Understanding from both family and employer is important to anyone volunteering, he said.

"Sometimes, the work was not after 5 p.m."

Brown realized while in high school in Saskatchewan that he wanted to be an accountant. "My last course before convocating was calculus. I took that at summer school and got 51. And that was my third crack at it."

Brown would go on to play a lead role in setting up the North's CMA society in 1978. He served the society as president for three terms.

The CMA fellowship awarded him is the profession's highest honor. He is one of only nine honored this year and one of only 246 in a profession of 28,000 CMAs with such a distinction.

"In my high school yearbook, I was described as a yes man," Brown said.

Over the years, he has said yes by helping many organizations, from the Storefront for Voluntary Agencies to St. John Ambulance to the air cadets and the Ukrainian society.

"Become a volunteer and jump in with both feet," he said.