For the next five years, MSU Professor Thomas Linsmeier's job will be to ensure financial reports from companies all over the United States are clean, clear and transparent.

Linsmeier was recently appointed to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, a national body that creates and determines corporate financial reporting guidelines. He is the chairman of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems in the Eli Broad College of Business at MSU.

"My priority is to improve reporting standards so that financial reports capture the real economic success or failure of companies," said Linsmeier, who will serve on the standards board for five years beginning July 1. "This is extremely important because when investors and creditors invest their money in better- performing companies, the amount of wealth in the U.S. grows."

According to Linsmeier, the challenge will be updating the rules so that the true value of companies is determined through a purely objective process.

"Some of the rules provide sufficient leeway, such that companies can choose to make their balance sheets more attractive than they really are," he said. "Not all companies do that, but there is the possibility."

According to Linsmeier, he will be using the skills he gained at MSU when creating financial reporting standards.

"Working in an academic setting, I learned to listen to the concerns of everyone — students, the faculty and alumni," he said. "Going to the standards board, I will listen to corporations, investors, creditors and accountants in deciding how to write rules that will be for the best of our economy."

Linsmeier was chosen after a rigorous search that lasted months, according to Gerard Carney, public relations director for the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

"The skills that an academic brings to the board can help encourage additional perspective and debate," Carney said. "We are confident that Tom's knowledge, experience and academic credentials will help advance our mission to establish and improve financial accounting and reporting."

Linsmeier has been involved in accounting for the past 21 years. He began teaching at the University of Iowa in 1985, worked for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and joined MSU in 1999.

"Although losing Tom will be a huge, direct loss to MSU, his contributions to the board will be beneficial to the accounting profession," said MSU accounting Professor Kathy Petroni. "Our future accounting students will benefit by having Tom on the board.

"He has already expressed a willingness to come back to campus on a regular basis to meet with students and to interact with our faculty."