Brenda Mizgorski is
a self-proclaimed Internet geek. She was hooked the moment she heard
"welcome" as she signed onto AOL as a charter member in
January 1994.
Envisioning this "WWW thing" would be pretty
big, she taught herself some HTML and
her first project was to upload the 1995 Christmas letter for her and her
husband, Marc.
Although it was fun, coding done in notepad and geeky stuff like that, she wanted to create a website that people
would actually visit. Tapping into her CPA skill-set, she decided an
index-driven directory of accounting-related resources would be her first online
foray and in March 1996 Brenda founded
CPAnet, an Internet research resource and virtual
community for CPAs.
Shortly after starting up CPAnet,
Brenda set off to pursue her MBA and was accepted at
Wharton. Leaving beautiful Pacific
Grove, California in their wake, Marc & Brenda and beagles Samantha &
Spreckels, embarked on a journey to Philly to attend the University of
Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
Brenda graduated from The Wharton
School in May 1999 with an MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management and
has been pursuing her virtual community interests full-time ever since.
During her stint at Wharton,
Brenda found time to write a book for Prentice Hall entitled Prentice
Hall Finance and Accounting Internet Guide. Prior to Wharton,
she worked at Coopers & Lybrand as Audit Manager and upon her departure in
1994 she started her
own accounting outsourcing business.
