Voices Ringing Blog /

My name is Lori Hallmark, and I am an assurance partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). My current role there primarily includes serving as an audit partner in our Private Company Services team in the Cincinnati office. In addition to my day to day role as an audit partner, I am also a part of the national team that helps determine the audit methodology, tools, and technology used by more than 2,000 team members nationally in our Private Company Services practice.

Climbing the ladder at PwC

I joined PwC after graduating from the University of Dayton (UD). Since joining PwC, I’ve been very fortunate to be able to serve in a number of different roles within the Firm. I started my time as a tax associate but quickly learned that completing tax returns was not for me! I watched the audit staff spend their time with clients every day, learning about how businesses work and getting to know people within the organization. I quickly knew that I wasn’t meant to be hanging out in the office every day and that working directly with clients to help them meet their business objectives was something that would really resonate with me. As I spent more time in the audit practice, I came to really enjoy working particularly with private company clients and understanding how the auditing standards could be applied differently in our audit work. This led to a number of different roles from consulting with teams on the application of auditing standards all the way to spending 18 months in our Tampa, Fla., office with a global team helping to rewrite the manual that PwC uses to conduct its audits.

Foundational Catholic education

Fortunately, my time at both UD and Carroll High School really prepared me to take on challenging assignments and provided me with the basis I needed to be successful. While I didn’t take any business classes in my time at Carroll, I did take plenty of challenging courses that taught me what it meant to be a life long learner. These courses taught me not just about text book learning, but how to apply that learning in the real world. Whether it was Science Fair or Youth in Government, being able to work in teams in an experiential way provided me with a strong basis for how I operate in the business world today. More important than anything I learned in specific course work though are the lessons I learned about the kind of person I wanted to be. Carroll provided me with one of my first significant opportunities to experience the joy of providing service to others. Through Action Appalachia, I worked with my classmates collecting donations of clothing to take to those who needed it. As we loaded the semi and prepared for the trip, I looked forward to spending time with my friends on what I expected to be a fun trip. I didn’t realize that the truly rewarding part of this would be seeing the real value of making a difference in someone else’s life.

Continuing a Carroll legacy

All of these lessons have been instrumental to me as an individual, but I saw Carroll from an entirely new light as the parent of a student. I thought that I knew how important Carroll had been in influencing my development in a positive way – enough that it was extremely important to me as a parent for my daughter to experience the same benefits. Experiencing the impact of the school and community from a parent’s perspective was truly amazing. Because my daughter Emma Mihlbachler '18 was involved in completely different aspects of the Carroll community as part of the music program, I was able to see a whole new side of what Carroll has to offer. I was also able to experience again the value of providing service to others as the food mom for the band. These years were absolutely some of the best I have spent, perhaps even better than when I was there as a student! Seeing the absolutely tireless effort that the parents, administration, band directors, and other members of the Carroll community put into the students from a parent's perspective really confirmed everything that I had experienced as a student and more. Now watching her as a successful college student in the nursing program at Case Western Reserve University, I am even more amazed at what a Carroll High School education provides its students.