9 minute read
member profile
from CPA2b Magazine - Fall 2022
by WICPA
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When Marcel Kas started kindergarten, he didn’t know a single word of English. While he was born in America, Marcel’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Poland, and when they taught Marcel to talk when he was a small child, they taught him their native language. He distinctly remembers his first experience with an American teacher.
“My parents had tricked me by telling me we were going to the store to look for Kinder Eggs,1 and instead they took me to a school and dropped me off in a classroom where a lady was reading a book. I remember her sitting down and opening the book the way a teacher does. She was talking to me in English, and I was talking back to her in Polish,” he said. It took Marcel years of ESL2 courses, summer school and interacting with others before he felt comfortable with the English language. Most of us never think about how difficult it can be when you don’t speak the language of the country you’re in. “It was definitely tough,” he said. “It’s kind of hard to make friends when you can’t speak their language. I didn’t even know how to pronounce my name in English,” he said. “But because my parents taught me Polish as my first language, I am able to have the full experience when I visit our village of Piekielnik.” At home, Marcel and his family still speak only Polish.
Finding his accounting path
While his early school years were difficult, Marcel has been able to excel in his studies. He graduated in the top 10 of his 2019 class at Greenfield High School, where he was not only a member of the school’s National Honor Society chapter; he also served as president. At Marquette University, Marcel has been on the Dean’s List every semester and holds a GPA of nearly 4.0. In 2022, he received a WICPA scholarship based on his academic achievement and his desire to become a CPA. He plans to take the CPA Exam as soon as he can after his May 2023 graduation from Marquette. Marcel became interested in accounting after Junior Achievement3 (JA) volunteers visited his fourth grade class and taught the students about banking, how to write checks, etc. The next year, his class went to JA BizTown,® a simulated town that kids get to run for a day, learning what it’s like to operate banks, manage restaurants, write checks — and vote for mayor. “I was elected the mayor there,” Marcel explained. “I had to work a lot with the bank, and it required doing a lot of math. I thought math was pretty good. English and reading were still kind of difficult for me since it’s my second language, but math is a universal language. It’s pretty easy to understand.” His interest and strength in math led him to take some accounting classes in high school. While he also had classes in AP chemistry and physics, it was the accounting classes that he enjoyed most. “Even though those science courses require a lot of math, I knew that science was not for me because I could not understand the concepts,” he said. “With business classes, I got the math part and the concepts part. With science, I got the math part, but I didn’t understand the concepts, so it was not for me.”
Marcel Kas is a senior at Marquette University.
In addition, a family friend, Agata Kosek, CPA, who was then studying accounting at UW–Whitewater, shared what she was doing in her studies and encouraged Marcel to explore accounting as a career. “She helped me out,” Marcel said, “but also, people would tell me, ‘Oh, accounting is not just about math,’ and I agree with that because there’s a lot of interaction with clients and co-workers in accounting, and I’m an extrovert. I just love interacting with people and bouncing ideas around.”
Sharing his heritage
Marcel’s extroverted personality has brought some much-needed success to an organization he belongs to and is very excited about: the Polish Student Alliance (PSA). The PSA is a community of students who share a passion for their Polish heritage and enjoy sharing it with others through events, volunteer work and fundraising. Many college campuses have a PSA. At Marquette, the PSA has about 90 members, 30–35 of whom are active participants, attending every meeting and helping with events. Marcel has been a member since he was a freshman and took on the public relations role that year. One of the first events he organized was a fundraiser, selling the Polish jelly- or custard-filled donuts called paczkis (“poonch-keys”). You may have had one last year on Fat Tuesday, as they are traditional New Orleans Mardi Gras favorites.
“I was able to find a Polish store here that sold us 150 paczkis for a discounted price, and then we sold them and made a profit,” Marcel explained. “The club originally started in 1920, but it kind of fell apart in the 1980s and ’90s. They revamped it in 2010, and this fundraiser was the first time we actually made some money. It was nice because it helped us have future events.”
Marcel was elected PSA president his sophomore year, but COVID intervened and took everything virtual. The only club activity that year was online trivia. Then last year, once everything opened up after COVID, the club was able to do more. They had a weekend retreat with a different Polish club in Madison, where they spent some time and made some new friends. “Then we had a cooking night, when we made pierogies [traditional Polish filled dumplings]; some movie nights and a game night. But the biggest thing we did was a big party that five of us organized. We called it the Spring Dance,” Marcel said. About 150 people attended, he explained, and it was a diverse crowd, with people from the local community, some from Illinois, and even some who flew in from Michigan. “It wasn’t just Polish students
Marcel (second from left) poses for a photo with friends at Polish Fest.
There’s a lot of interaction with clients “ and co-workers in accounting, and I’m an extrovert. I just love interacting with people and bouncing ideas around.”
either; we had Americans and others who just wanted to see and experience what a European party is like.” Apparently European parties are pretty grand, because this one lasted from 7 p.m. until 3 or 3:30 the next morning. It featured a DJ, a Polish band and Polish dancers, and according to Marcel, “It was a full night of dancing.” The event will happen again this year, with Marcel acting as a resource to other PSA members who will organize it. “We had a lot of donors last year, and it took a lot of calling,” Marcel said. “I had to call so many different places every single day, keep up with email
Marcel and Nicole Sygieda at the MU Polish Students Alliance paczki sale fundraiser.
The Kas family: Grazyna, Jozef, Kinga and Marcel.
Photo provided by Marcel Kas
Coming to America
You can’t tell a story about Marcel Kas and his conquest of the English language without also telling his parents’ story. Back in 1997, not just anyone could come to the U.S. from Poland. Marcel’s parents came separately that year. His father, Jozef, was able to come here because his grandmother was born in Pennsylvania. His mother, Grazyna, was able to come because her father was here, having arrived in the States in 1995. “It wasn’t easy for them,” Marcel said. “When they came here, they had nothing. They each came with one piece of luggage. They didn’t know the language. They didn’t have a car or a job. It was tough. My father answered a classified ad in the newspaper for a job at a shop in Milwaukee, and that’s how the family came to live in Wisconsin.” The couple met in Chicago at a Polish friend’s house. When Jozef found out Grazyna was looking for work, he referred her to the same shop he was working in. Marcel’s parents both worked first shift at that shop when Marcel was born in 2001. “That had to change because someone had to take care of me,” he said. So his mother took second shift, and the couple would trade the baby back and forth in the shop parking lot at the end of their shifts. Fast-forward to today: Jozef is a CNC4 machinist at a facility in Racine, and Grazyna operates a cleaning service. The couple have raised two very bright children. Of course, there’s Marcel — and then there’s Kinga, Marcel’s sister, who graduated from Greenfield High School in May and was the valedictorian of her class. She’s a freshman at Marquette this year and will study economics. While life was difficult for Jozef and Grazyna in the beginning, this Polish couple have been able to achieve the American Dream while still holding onto their native country’s culture. Now it’s up to Marcel and Kinga to succeed in their lives and continue those traditions.
4 Computer numerical control. CNC machinists work with CNC machinery to create tools and parts from metal, plastic and other materials.
and meet with prospective donors. So there’s a lot of work that goes into it.”
Breaking for joy
“A lot of work” is not something that has ever scared Marcel away. As noted, it was a lot of hard work for him just to learn to speak and read English in elementary school. The Spring Dance was a lot of work. It’s a lot of work to juggle school and work — he works part time at Direct Supply, spending about 15 hours a week there on accounting and finance projects. He also does a lot of work with the tennis teams at his alma mater, Greenfield High School, putting in an hour and a half Monday through Friday coaching both men’s and women’s teams and three to six hours when they have matches. But Marcel doesn’t consider coaching “a lot of work.” “I consider it a break for me because I’m in the books, studying and going to class, and after some time, I need a break. So it’s nice just going outside, getting some fresh air, hitting the ball. And coaching them, seeing them improve, having fun and also being competitive — that’s just joy to me,” he said. Marcel will graduate in May 2023 with dual degrees in accounting and finance. He had an accounting internship with Deloitte over the summer and looks forward to a great senior year followed by a career as a CPA. He would like to own his own business someday — and return to Poland for a visit.
Marcel finds joy working with high school students as a tennis coach at his alma mater, Greenfield High School.
Marcia Tillett-Zinzow is a Wisconsin freelance writer and editor. Contact her at mtzinzow@icloud.com.
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