We’ve Got High Expectations

Hayes shares a similar path with other Dark Horse CPAs. Like her colleague Niki Potter, she was a Gaucho who got her accounting degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and moved to North County, San Diego. Like Suzi Drennen, she is a long-time resident of Cardiff (20 years!) who can be spotted at the beach on the reg. Like many DH CPAs, she started her career at one of the Big Four (Ernst & Young). And, like all Dark Horses, her desire to advance her career and life and to do something wildly different from "accounting as usual" lead her here. She loves problem-solving and learning new things in a collaborative fashion, so the move to Dark Horse...well, it just made sense.

Hayes grew up in Dallas, Texas but found a better lifestyle fit in Southern California after coming out for her undergrad studies. She decided to deepen her roots in the region by starting her career at E&Y in San Diego and, shortly after that, earning her MBA at San Diego State University. After working for 12 years in the corporate accounting and finance world, she decided to go out on her own, providing a host of accounting services to small businesses and startups. Along the way, she gained deep knowledge and experience in forensic accounting.

When not cleaning up and perfecting financial statements, you can find Hayes on a walk (with her yellow lab, Hank), a jog, hiking, camping, surfing, hanging out at the beach or watching her kids play sports. In other words, you probably won't find her inside. Hayes met her husband, Jeff, in college at UCSB and has been married to him for 20 years. They started their family in Cardiff, which includes the aforementioned 4-legged friend, Beau (15), Lyla (12) and Farrah (9). They are (surprise, surprise) quite active and always on the go, like their mom

John Warner is a principal at Dark Horse CPAs. His career began working for the “Dark Side” – the (gasp) Internal Revenue Service. After a year of enduring the painfully terrible jokes about the IRS that came about conversationally when John mentioned his employer (example: “You better be careful about what you say to John because he’ll turn you in”), John decided to put the jokes to rest by entering public accounting at a large national CPA firm, where he spent seven years growing a national tax real estate practice which served large, international real estate investment and management firms.

Throughout his tenure at the large firm, he couldn’t shake the idea that he could be doing more to help small businesses in his own community. This desire to work with small businesses led him to start his own practice catered to the “little guy” – going so far as to set up a firm and start advertising around town. But as usually happens with the best-laid plans, they went out the window when he serendipitously came across a job posting for Dark Horse CPAs. After talking to Chase and Max, the founders of Dark Horse, John realized he had met two guys who were already practicing what he was hoping to preach. Things moved fast – three weeks, some phone calls, and a job offer later, he was on a plane to San Diego to meet the team (his wife being legitimately concerned it might be a “Taken/Hostel/Saw/other scary movie here,” situation. Fortunately, it was not). Since then, John has been living his professional dream, assisting small businesses and individuals to improve their tax and financial position.

John grew up in St. Louis, MO, and still lives there. He went to college at Truman State University, where, within the first hour on campus, he met his future wife, Kendra. John and Kendra have three kids; Will, Annalise, and Patrick – and (usually) they are great kids. John (and Will) are fans of the St. Louis Cardinals and Blues (Stanley Cup Champs!), and since Kendra is a diehard Chiefs fan (she’s from Kansas City), John is more than willing to jump on that winning bandwagon.

When he’s not working or hanging out with the family, John pretends to train for marathons or finds projects to complete around the house on the family’s “fixer-upper.”

Sometimes you discover your calling in life far from home. For Riana, that calling was accounting, and that place was Eugene, Oregon. Riana grew up in Phoenix and, like many folks at that age, felt the calling to leave home and explore. A year in LA, six months in Atlanta, and then…Eugene. Maybe because the rain forces you to find indoor interests, Riana discovered her interest in (and eventual love for) accounting. Thus, Riana got her degree in Accounting from the University of Oregon. After a 16-year stint in the Beaver State (don’t tell that to an Oregon Ducks fan), she decided the state she left wasn’t so bad after all and the dry heat made her feel a lot better than the gloomy cold of the Pacific Northwest.

The Accounting Equation is Assets = Liabilities + Equity. Not many folks get excited about that, but Riana does. Even fewer would express love for an equation, but Riana does. The equation represents a form of order and structure absent in much of the world. Her accounting career has led her to firms small and large, each of which left her with a desire to start a firm of her own. When she found Dark Horse, she knew her new accounting equation would be Riana + Her Own Practice = Dark Horse CPAs.

Riana loves helping small business owners dial in their financial forecasting to make strategic business decisions and deploy tax-saving maneuvers to increase their global bottom line. She’s also passionate about sustainability and the triple bottom line. Riana’s bottom line is that she loves her work. Outside of work, she loves seeing as much live music as she can, chasing waterfalls (sorry, TLC), and spending time with her family: her partner, Robert, and her cat and dog, Spike and Lea, respectively.