Meet the 2005 Distinguished Public Service
Award Winner

Benjamin J. Matteo, CPA

Benjamin J. Matteo and his wife Josephine hold the Distinguished Public Service Award at the 2005 PICPA Annual Meeting and Conference.

If you're seeking examples of selflessness in an increasingly materialistic society, the story of Benjamin J. Matteo, CPA, will touch and impress you.

Matteo, the 2005 PICPA Distinguished Public Service Award recipient, not only helped people survive the Great Depression, but did so while helping to raise his five brothers after his father died. Helping your own family endure the biggest financial crisis in our country's history is certainly a full-time effort, but then add the burden of helping others that you hardly know.

Overcoming obstacles and helping others, however, is second nature to Matteo, 85, who still works part-time at Snyder & Clemente, a public accounting firm in Hazleton.
He is a past president of the Northeastern Chapter.

Matteo has worked as a CPA for 46 years, but attained his accreditation before graduating college: he became a CPA in 1959, but didn't graduate from Wilkes University until 1961. Matteo was fired from his first job, and his boss claimed he would never succeed in accounting. Less than a week later, another accountant hired him, and then, in an ironic twist, purchased the practice of the person who fired Matteo.

Matteo's public service achievements predate World War II. In 1938, he helped found the Swing Club, which gets its name from the "Swing" music
of that era. One year later, Matteo convinced Tommy Dorsey Sr., father of famous musicians Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, to perform at a charity fundraiser in Hazleton as a guest conductor at a Big Band concert.

Inclement weather prevented Dorsey from attending, but the concert raised $500 and Matteo proposed that it be used as seed money to start distribution of holiday food baskets to the needy. The distribution of these baskets, which contain a plethora of goods, continues to this day.

Matteo has always adhered to a humbling motto: "No matter how poor you are, there is always someone more poor," he says. In fact, he once told the Hazleton Standard-Speaker about a former bank executive who said, "You are giving more in those baskets than you have in your own home."

For Matteo, public service did not end with the Swing Club. He is a 52-year member, and former president, of the Hazleton Lions Club, of which he has never missed a meeting. Through this organization, Matteo helps provide leader dogs for the blind. He also provided the initial contribution to a scholarship fund awarded to a needy, sight-impaired student in the Hazleton area.

Matteo is also a former president of the Hazleton Unico Club, which assists individuals with Alzheimer's disease and their families, and the local chapter of the Easter Seal Society - now the Helping Hands Society - which helps the disabled in the Hazleton area.

In 2004, Matteo attained the designation of 4th Degree member of the Knights of Columbus. He's been a member of that organization for more than 50 years. The national Catholic men's fraternal society assists the sick, disabled, and needy. He has also maintained a perfect attendance with the Men of Malvern, a spiritual retreat program, for nearly 60 years.

The Hazleton CPA has also been a generous giver to, and volunteer for, Catholic Social Services Inc. Neil F. Oberto, executive director of the organization, said of Matteo, "He has never sought any type of public recognition for his generous assistance to families within the Greater Hazleton area. His sense of integrity and value of service is what should be held up as a model and recognized."

Matteo cites a lot of changes in the profession since he began his career,
particularly the paperwork. "Tax forms were only a few pages, now there's
hundreds of pages and many volumes [of regulations]," Matteo said, though
he claims the sophistication has not complicated his work. "There's just a lot of referencing."

A veteran of the U.S. Navy, Matteo is quick to credit his wife of 53 years, Josephine, for much of his success. When he accepted the Distinguished Public Service Award at PICPA's 108th Annual Meeting and Conference in West Palm Beach, Fla., he said, "You not only made my day, but my life."