Lansing Williams

Campus Service

• Emergency Operations Group
• Faculty Advisor, Enactus

Community Service

• Kent County Ethics Commission
• Board of Directors & Treasurer, Humane Society of Kent County
• Treasurer, Windmill Class Association
• Volunteer Sailing Instructor, Chester River Yacht and Country Club

Teaching Philosophy

Accounting has been described as the language of business. I view accounting as a book, telling the reader the life and the health of a business, only using numbers rather than words.

In the classroom, I help my students understand that language, help them learn to write the book, and then how to interpret the book, so that they can understand where a company has been, and where it might be going.

Before coming to Washington College, I spent over 35 years in the corporate accounting world, first on the audit trail with a large regional accounting firm in the Washington DC area, then in the corporate environment, and later as a consultant helping small and start-up companies who needed accounting, financial software, and Chief Financial Officer support.

When I’m teaching, I often draw on my real-world experience to supplement textbook explanations and procedures with practical techniques–not exactly tricks, but solutions to thorny or pesky problems that might not even be mentioned in a textbook.

Over the years in industry, my greatest joy was meeting with a group of people to discuss their vision of a company, helping them put their vision on paper, developing a business plan, translating the words in the business plan into a five-year financial plan, presenting those plans to potential investors, creating a financial accounting system, and implementing the plan into reality: in essence, helping bring a dream to life.

Now I do that with young accounting students, by teaching them accounting skills and helping them connect those skills with real-world activities and situations.

Fun stuff: 

Enjoys racing his Windmill Class sailboat.