As we wrap up Black History Month 2022 and recognize the contributions of Black Americans, we close down the month with a bit of a look ahead. We’re still taking stock of achievements from our past, but this time we’re doing it with an eye toward the future as well.

Joining that conversation today is Dalton Tong. He’s a CPA and a CGMA with a career that’s steeped in health care and health management, in addition to accounting and finance. Tong been a senior lecturer at the Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University since 2014, and he has a number of "first" accomplishments to his name:

• He is the first African-American to serve on the National Board of the Health Care Financial Management Association, which has members in the U.S., the UK, and other countries around the world.
• He is the first African-American to manage the financial affairs of a large hospital in Maryland, again, serving as vice president and CFO for South Baltimore General, which then became Harbor Hospital Center.
• He is the first African-American to become certified as a Fellow of the Health Care Management Association and, concurrently, as a Fellow of the American College of Health Care Executives. In fact, he’s still the only African-American to hold that dual certification.
• And he’s the first Black CPA in Maryland’s history to be named the Maryland Association of CPAs’ Accounting Educator of the Year.

Rather than talk about them, though, he prefers to discuss and highlight the impact those achievements may have on the next generation of CPAs. He calls it “showcasing possibility — letting future generations know what’s possible so that they can step forward with confidence and hope.

Listen to our conversation here:

  Resources:

• 'Limited pipeline' biggest challenge in advancing DE&I, survey finds
• Johns Hopkins University

Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media.