Like so many others who have found their way to the Flathead Valley, Sandy Carlson and her family were lured here by a couple of vacation trips to ski on Big Mountain and see Glacier National Park.

She and her husband, Scott, often had talked about how they’d like to retire to this area, and their two children envisioned going to Montana colleges.

Then along came the job opportunity that would speed up their plans to relocate to Kalispell from Brooklyn Park, Minn. Carlson found out Flathead County was creating a new finance department and planned to hire a finance director. She applied, got the job and started work in late August.

“In three weeks’ time we packed up a house, a cabin, two kids and a dog,” Carlson said about the family’s westward journey.

In reshuffling the county’s financial end, a comptroller position was eliminated when the finance director job was created. Previously the comptroller reported to the county clerk and recorder; now the finance director reports directly to the county commissioners. A contracted accounting firm that used to provide financial reporting was sidelined in favor of the county doing all of its bookkeeping in house.

“We’re still working through that process,” Carlson said about the reorganization. “I expect it to take awhile.”

In between dealing with auditors for a couple of weeks in January and getting ready to tackle the county budget this month, Carlson has held weekly meetings with County Treasurer Adele Krantz and Clerk and Recorder Paula Robinson, who, she said, “have been awesome” in transitioning to the new finance department.

And to add a little more upheaval to the transition, the finance department is among the county offices that have temporarily relocated while the main Courthouse is being renovated this year. The finance department is in the basement of the Courthouse East Annex.

CARLSON brings a lot of financial moxie to the table. She got experience in local government accounting through two separate jobs in Minnesota. She was a part-time accountant for the city of Coon Rapids for five years and later was the full-time assistant finance officer for the city of Ramsey for five years.

“My experience in government has been with cities,” she said. “Laws in Minnesota are different that in Montana” and understanding the county’s accounting structure has taken some added effort.

Carlson’s love of mathematics goes back to high school when she worked as a bookkeeper for a neighbor who ran an auto repair shop. She grew up on a farm near the small community of Lonsdale, about an hour south of the Minneapolis metro area and said her school years were pretty normal. She was in band and choir and was a typist for the school newspaper.

But she always gravitated toward numbers. Carlson took a full year of accounting in high school and like it so much she planned to get an accounting degree in college.

She veered from accounting to business administration for her degree from Mankato State University, though, with concentrations in management, marketing, industrial relations and administrative management, plus a minor in economics and accounting.

Unsure whether her business administration degree would carry her where she wanted to go “in the real world,” Carlson went back to college and took night classes to pick up an accounting degree at Mankato State. She passed the Certified Public Accountant exam but isn’t currently licensed.

Her first big job was with Dataserve, where she began an eight-year stint as an account analyst and was promoted several times until she was treasurer of one of the company’s divisions. When that company began to “wind down,” Carlson worked for a year at a hospital near her home, then became a systems analyst at Park Nicollet Health Services for four years.

“I found I really missed accounting, though,” she recalled.

By that time she’d had her second child and was looking for part time work, which brought her into government accounting.

Carlson said their two children, Nicole, 16, and Daniel, 13, have adjusted well to the Flathead Valley.

“It’s been a great thing for my kids,” she said. “In so many respects I’m glad we did the move. We’re living our dream and appreciate the opportunity to do it.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.