Alan L. Olsen

Alan L. Olsen was born in Riverside, California in 1960. As a child, he moved to Helena, Montana when his father took a job there. At the age of 19, Olsen volunteered to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was assigned to work in their Cebu, Philippines mission region.[1]

Upon completing his two-year assignment, Olsen attended Marriott School of Business where he earned a Bachelor's in Accounting in 1984. He later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he became a Certified Public Accountant and married his wife Susan.[2]

Olsen earned a Bachelor's degree in accounting from Brigham Young University, before earning his MBA from California State University, East Bay in 1992. He later served on Kim B. Clark's Advancement Council at BYU-Idaho.[3] In 1998, Olsen helped organize LDS Day at the San Francisco Giants at Candlestick Park, an event for the LDS community which included around 5,000 people.[4][5]

Olsen began his career working as an auditor with the IRS, and then a tax manager at Deloitte before becoming Managing Partner at Greenstein, Rogoff, Olsen & Co., LLP (GROCO), a CPA firm in the San Francisco Bay Area.[6][7] He has taught accounting at Ohlone College, and been a guest lecturer at Brigham Young University - Idaho, Brigham Young University, Marriott School of Business, and Southern Virginia University.[8] Olsen is also a member of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR).[9]

Olsen has been featured as a guest expert on media outlets such as Consumer Reports, CNN Money, and Fox Business News.[10][11][12] In 2016, Olsen did a feature with Bloomberg on the tax returns of Donald Trump.[13]