SALT LAKE CITY — Val Oveson just had another birthday.
He is believed to be the youngest person ever to turn 64.
Followers of Oveson’s life and adventures would not dispute such a claim. Doing things early is what he does. In 1980, when he was 28, he was elected state auditor — the third-youngest auditor in state history. Four years later, as Norm Bangerter’s running mate in the governor’s race, he was elected lieutenant governor — the second youngest in state history at age 32.
After that he became chairman of the Utah State Tax Commission in 1993, when he was all of 41, and in 1998 he moved to the federal government to become the national taxpayer advocate of the IRS in Washington, D.C., the first ever to hold that post — and, yep, at 47, the youngest.
Finally, in 2003, at the ripe old age of 51, he served as chief information officer for the state of Utah.
When he left the public eye in 2004, he could look back at a 24-year period — half his life to that point — filled with a variety of assignments and responsibilities that came so fast and so soon he barely saw them coming.
Now a CPA with WSRP LLC, one of Utah’s largest accounting firms, Oveson sat down with the Deseret News in his office in the historic Salt Lake Hardware Building to reminisce about where he’s been and what he’s learned, and give his views on subjects ranging from politics to taxes to how to have financial peace.
DN: Thank you for the chance to talk today. Do you ever get dizzy just thinking about all you’ve done in such a relatively short period of time?
VO: At the time it didn’t seem that unusual. I just kept following my nose as the opportunities presented themselves. What is surreal now is to see my children, who are all now in their 30s, and think what I was doing at that age. What was I thinking! I also feel incredible gratitude for the opportunities I have had. I have definitely had my day in the sun. I’m particularly grateful for the people I met and had an opportunity to work with.
DN: When you were young did you plot out your life, or did one thing lead to another?
VO: There was certainly no grand plan. I was always involved in leadership and I loved being involved in government from an early stage of my life. When I was 28 and told my dad I was thinking of running for state auditor, he thought I was crazy. I’d just started my own accounting firm, and he was clearly not happy about me leaving that. But when he saw I was going to do it, he didn’t say another negative word and went to work helping me. He was retired at the time and every morning during that campaign he would get up in the morning, fix a sandwich and then do eight hours of tracting all over Utah County. Somebody would say, ‘I’m a Democrat, why would I vote for him?’ He’d say, ‘I’m a Democrat, and I’m going to vote for him.’ ” I try to use my father’s example in dealing with my own children. It’s difficult to hold my opinions and be supportive of their goals.
DN: Your father was obviously a big influence in your life.
VO: He was a wonderful man. He played basketball at BYU in 1928-29 but hurt his knee and didn’t have the money to stay in school without the scholarship, and jobs were scarce at the beginning of the Depression. He went to work for Philo Edwards, LaVell’s father, milking cows. He ended up as a plate finisher at Geneva Steel later on. I’m incredibly proud of him for his perseverance. He made a good living and we had a great life. I had a wonderful childhood growing up in Orem.
DN: Why accounting?
VO: I’d always been interested in accounting, even when I didn’t know what it was. As a teenager I played with columnar paper and was interested in budgeting and how numbers fit together. I served a mission to Australia in 1971-73, and that actually was the beginning of my accounting awareness. I wasn’t the financial secretary, but I oversaw the financial secretary and learned a lot about the process. When Richard Jensen, an auditor at the time for the LDS Church, came to Sydney to audit our mission, I was his guide and chauffeur and his interface with the financial secretary. That was in 1972. He went back to Utah, left church auditing and was elected state auditor in 1976. In 1980 I replaced him.
DN: You were just 28. Was it difficult getting elected?
VO: Ronald Reagan swept us all into office. I could have stayed home and sipped lemonade all summer and still won. Although my active campaigning was one of the reasons I was selected lieutenant governor. I was out there meeting people and working hard, so when it came to the lieutenant governor selection process four years later, that was one of the factors that entered into Norman Bangerter’s equation.
DN: But even at 28, you weren’t the youngest state auditor?
VO: When I was elected I went back and researched all of the state auditors in Utah’s history. I wanted to learn from them and try to understand what I had gotten myself into. I found that Lincoln Kelly was 26 years old when he took office in 1926. David Monson (elected in 1972) was 27 when he was elected state auditor, and so I was actually the third youngest when I was elected at age 28.
DN: As lieutenant governor, you served for eight years with Norm Bangerter, who recently passed away. Your memories of Norm?
VO: Norm was a great man and a very good governor. He had integrity and he cared deeply about doing his part to build a great state. He was an incredible partner and treated me, my wife and my family with the greatest respect. I was about the same age as his oldest son, so in many ways I became part of his family. He was very inclusive and deferential as much as he could be. As for my role, I realized that my success as lieutenant governor depended on my willingness to subordinate my ego and my political ambitions to him. When you see governors and lieutenant governors who don’t get along and have that strife, that’s what we were trying to avoid, and I think he did a marvelous job to make that happen.
DN: Your biggest takeaway from your 24-year run in government?
VO: The quality and commitment of public servants. It astounded me. When I was in private business as a certified public accountant, I felt the anti-government sentiment that was pretty prevalent then and certainly is today. So I ran for state auditor and overnight found myself as the leader of 45 CPAs working in the auditor’s office. I was amazed at the quality and commitment of these professionals. It didn’t take me long to adjust my thinking, but I had to unlearn a lot of prejudices I’d acquired about government employees and people working in the government.
DN: You were the American taxpayer’s top advocate when you became the first national taxpayer advocate in Washington, D.C. What’s your takeaway from that experience?
VO: I spent my years in Washington as the poster child for tax simplification. One of my biggest frustrations was to learn that there is no constituency for simplification of the tax code. There is a constituency and a pool of lobbying money for credits and exemptions and breaks for individuals and corporations. But there was nobody willing to put up money and go to work for absolute simplification, and there still isn’t.
DN: What do you mean by simplification?
VO: Simplification is leveling out the road. If you’ve got a road you’re trying to build through a mountain, you’re going to do what’s called in the construction industry "cut and fill." You’re going to cut that mountain off and put the fill in the valley in order to have a 6 percent grade on the road. That’s what we need to do with the tax system. We need to cut that hill off and put it in the valley. The problem with cutting the hill off is those are the benefits that have been fought long and hard for and people in the valley don’t even know they don’t have them. Every exemption or credit that you put in the tax code geometrically complicates it, and it’s just overwhelmed itself on that complication. Simplification is to peel all that back. I’d love to see it happen, but I don’t have any expectation that it is going to happen.
DN: When you were lieutenant governor and helped reduce the cost of government, Utah was named “Best Managed State” by Financial World magazine. Why? And is it still?
VO: Yes, it still is, and the reason why, then and now, is because of key people doing their jobs in important roles, including the Legislature and the governor, the state treasurer, the state auditor, the state finance directors — all of them play an important part. Aversion to debt is ingrained in our background, and the debt the state has is very manageable. There are a lot of unsung heroes who deserve a lot of credit for maintaining our AAA rating. People like Ed Alter, who spent 32 years as state treasurer, a very qualified financial professional who was willing to spend his career in a very critical, very low-key state position. And Tom Allen and Austin Johnson who both did great work as former state auditors. And many, many others.
DN: Finish this sentence: The best thing about politics is ___________________?
VO: The fact that we have a free society and we value freedom over efficiency. If we were to have an efficient government, we would have a board of directors of four or five and a CEO with all the power. But ultimate freedom means having a free-for-all with 535 members of Congress, with all its problems of not everyone agreeing and getting along. The fact we have that system and we’re by and large hanging in there to work together is the strength of America’s politics.
DN: What’s your best tip for personal financial security and peace?
VO: To me that question bridges over into some religious subjects. The only real peace is inner peace and peace with yourself and your God. Personal preparation on that front I think is the only peace we have. And certainly from that vantage point you have some sage advice that comes from religious leaders, and secular financial leaders, to minimize or stay out of debt, make sure your debt is manageable, to live within your means, plan for a rainy day, stop keeping up with the Joneses, and make smart risks. We all need to take risks. Getting up in the morning is a risk, but we all need to take risks that are well thought out and reasonable.
DN: What’s now for you and what’s next?
VO: I’m coming up on 64 and I’m planning on my retirement from the firm probably in the next year or so. After that I’m planning on serving a (church) mission with my wife, maybe multiples, and enjoying my family. I’ll probably always be involved with boards and politics in some manner, but I don’t want to work the rest of my life. As much as I enjoy accounting and tax, it’s very demanding and I’m looking forward to doing some other things.
Email: benson@deseretnews.com