Alicia Schmidt, CPA, is a Principal in the national assurance technical group at CliftonLarsonAllen (CLA) with over 20 years of public accounting experience. At CLA, her primary responsibilities as the service assurance leader includes quality control, monitoring activities, second/technical reviews, and consultations for the employee benefit plan industry assurance and accounting practice. She also serves on the firm's performance standards task force. Ms. Schmidt's background includes audits of single, multiple-, and multi-employer employee benefit plans, including defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans, health and welfare plans, training plans, and other tax-exempt organizations. Ms. Schmidt assists with learning sessions, implementation of new standards, acquisition integration, and audit innovation initiatives. She works with the Department of Labor routine inspections of the firm's employee benefit plan practice.