Make a promise, keep a promise. (California Society of Certified Public Accountants President Tom Cleveland)

New Society President Tom Cleveland is a man of action with a penchant for getting things done.

Tom Cleveland does not procrastinate. And he doesn't like to theorize for theorization's sake. What he does like to do is set his sights, make his mark and move on. As the Society's 1994-95 president, he is carrying through with his personal goal of serving the Society and tangibly improving the CPA profession in California.

Cleveland is carrying out his year as Society president from the wooded, campus-like setting of Management & Capital Group in Walnut Creek. He works minutes away from his home of 24 years in Lafayette, the city where he holds the distinction of being the only CPA to have served as mayor.

Public Service

Cleveland ascended to his mayoral post by way of Lafayette's planning commission and City Council. "I thought being a planning commissioner would be a good way to learn about government," he says. In 1972, after petitioning twice, the then-mayor of Lafayette appointed Cleveland to the commission, and he served for the next seven years, spending his last year as chair.

It was during that last year that a City Council seat opened up. The mayor visited Cleveland again, this time with the message that it was Cleveland's duty to run for council. He ran and won.

"City Council was quite a different life," he explains. "The planning commission was a lot of fun. The work fit in with regulations and a fairly narrow, but difficult, judgment pattern." On City Council, however, Cleveland remembers that the work required more subjectivity; interpreting rules was only part of the game. "You get a lot of judgment calls," he says, "including personnel, dealings with other cities and upcoming developments."

After serving five years on City Council, he ran for mayor and was again successful. At the end of his mayoral term, Cleveland left the sphere of public office. "I couldn't do it professionally," he says. "I was working for a Big 8 accounting firm, was national director of banking at the time and had a family with two children. I had the candle flickering at both ends."

Even though Cleveland has left city hall behind, he carries with him many lessons learned during his years of public service. "The experience taught me a lot about organization," he says. "You have to keep good records. You have to organize your mind, and most…