Poole Pack Profiles: Get to Know Eileen Taylor

Poole College accounting professor Eileen Taylor has years of experience both in academia and the private sector. She’s also the president of a nonprofit that delivers fresh flowers, and it doesn’t take an accountant to explain how that brightens someone’s day.

Taylor’s draw to The Flower Shuttle, a Raleigh-based nonprofit that has delivered about 350,000 flower arrangements over 18 years, has nothing to do with the financial analysis, taxes and auditing.

It’s about people.    

For many Flower Shuttle recipients, “Getting cut flowers is something they’ve never experienced. It’s not the first thing you buy if you have a limited budget. It’s nice to supplement all the charities that do needed things for people,” Taylor says. “What we do is not needed, but appreciated.” 

Much like flower delivery, Taylor’s instruction can make a powerful impact. 

“I love it when students give feedback that they can use the skills they’ve learned in their day-to-day life, when they have that aha moment and something just clicks. They’re able to apply what they’ve learned somewhere else,” says Taylor, who has been a Poole faculty member since 2006.

A Changing Field

Taylor’s goal when she finished her undergraduate accounting degree was to be an accountant. “It’s a very clear career path…and you can get your CPA license,” she says. “There are ways to demonstrate your competence without it being subjective.” 

She worked as an auditor at Deloitte, a controller at a nonprofit foundation, and was an adjunct instructor before she pursued a doctoral degree.

Taylor enjoyed teaching and research so much, she decided to pursue a career in academia.    

“I love it when students give feedback that they can use the skills they’ve learned in their day-to-day life, when they have that aha moment and something just clicks.”

When she entered the then-male dominated field around 1990, pay discrimination against women was common in accounting — which Taylor notes also happened in other professions.

Now, “There’s not the conclusion that if you’re a woman coming in, you’re going to leave, have kids and not come back to accounting,” she says, “because there have been women who have stayed.”

That includes Taylor. 

As she has stayed in accounting, her research has focused on fraud, ethics and whistleblowing in the field, and she became a CPA and certified fraud examiner. 

“I have a strong sense of equality and justice,” Taylor says. “People who get away with fraud can really harm a company so that innocent employees lose their jobs…It’s important to the profession for accountants to be seen as working in the public interest, so the public can trust them.”

The Flower Shuttle

With her teaching load and research to maintain trust in the accounting profession, it’s a wonder Taylor has time for volunteer work.

But flowers were hard to resist. 

She’s been involved with The Flower Shuttle since 2017 and president since 2019. 

Three hundred volunteers deliver flowers to about 70 organizations, mostly in Cary, Durham and Raleigh. Flowers end up at hospitals, nursing homes, nonprofits, NC State’s food bank — and even the state Capitol.

Donations come mostly from grocery stores. “These are all flowers that would end up in the trash,” Taylor says. “It’s amazing that volunteers are so dedicated they keep doing it, but they do.”

That dedication means 2,500 to 4,000 arrangements delivered monthly. 

Outside of Work

Flowers aren’t Taylor’s only diversion from accounting’s demands. She and her husband convert homes into short-term rentals. He makes renovations, she decorates interiors. “It’s a creative activity to balance the accounting part of my life,” says Taylor, who also quilts and participates in a book club. 

But family is her main motivator. Taylor and her husband, whom she met when she was 15, have been married nearly 40 years. Their three children are all NC State graduates — two of them Poole College alumni. Their children and three grandsons live in Raleigh. 

Family is also her biggest accomplishment. 

“My husband and I can be this role model of resilience and understanding that things are not always great, but it’s how you react that matters most,” Taylor says. “We can show them the importance of taking care of yourself first. If you can’t do that, you can’t take care of your spouse and family.”

One of Taylor’s self-care activities is yoga, and she’s a longtime practitioner. 

Working with flowers is another.  

“Who wouldn’t want to arrange and deliver flowers? It’s a way to give back to the community,” she says. “It’s very positive. When people get flowers, they’re so happy. It’s joyous.”