Malverne resident a finalist in national college competition

Malverne resident Ann Montemarano, who is a senior at Providence College, will be part of a five-member student team to represent the school in a national student accounting competition.

The xTREME Accounting (xACT) finals will take place on Jan. 8 and 9 in New York City. The student team was selected from approximately 45 schools as one of five finalists for the competition. This will be Providence College’s second national finals appearance in its seven-year history of participating in xACT.

The PC team, dubbed “The Consolidators,” is led by Montemarano and includes David Glaser (Westborough, Mass.), Vincent Travelyn (North Scituate, R.I.), Amanda Medeiros (Fall River, Mass.) and Philip Pin (Wilbraham, Mass.). The team is coached by faculty mentor Christine Earley, professor of accountancy and PwC mentor Robert Burkhart.

Providence College will compete against four other schools — the University of California, Berkley, the University of Texas, the University of Washington and Villanova University. The finalists were chosen recently by a PwC national review committee following individual campus presentations in November.

xACT is a collegiate competition designed to provide students with educational, career-oriented and networking opportunities. These include learning about high-level accounting and business practices and the accounting profession itself; nurturing critical thinking and communication skills; working in a collaborative environment; and interacting with members of the profession.

The competition is sponsored by global accounting and auditing giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and will take place at PwC headquarters. The five finalists each receive $10,000 from PwC, and their faculty mentor is awarded $5,000. The overall champion will be crowned the winner of the Montgomery Award, named after Robert Montgomery, who wrote the first American book on the practice of accounting.