Michael Anthony Crawford
He is the sole recipient of the President's Gold Award from the Oklahoma Municipal League, which was created in 2011 to recognize service to Oklahoma local governments and officials, by a non-public official. Mike worked for the City of Edmond for 2 years prior to going into private practice as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). That, along with experience gained from auditing cities and towns "hooked" him on local government.
He has influenced the accounting profession about local governments through positions on committees directly related to governmental accounting and auditing of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Oklahoma Society of CPA’s, Oklahoma Accountancy Board and the Governmental Accounting Standards Advisory Council.
He is recognized as a leading contributor to the language and lobbying effort to secure the Oklahoma Municipal Budget Act and it was noted in his nomination to the hall of fame that "a multitude of municipalities, small and large, have received vital training in budgeting, fraud detection and response, and audit preparation from him".
The President and CEO of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants noted in a nomination support letter that, "his leadership, commitment to, and knowledge of the profession and governmental auditing and accounting has benefited many individual CPA's, their clients, and the CPA profession as a whole".