Suzi Drennen joined the Dark Horse team after 25 years of having her own CPA practice and could not be more thrilled with the move. Suzi’s favorite part of the job is working directly with clients and building long-term relationships that go beyond accounting and taxes.

Suzi grew up in Southern California after spending her early childhood following her father’s aircraft carrier around the world with her mother and brother. This sowed the seeds of a lifelong love of travel and experiencing other cultures. After graduating from the University of Southern California, Suzi moved to Colorado and excelled as a full-time ski bum and part-time chef before taking the CPA exam.

After bouncing around different corners of the globe (Hawaii, India, a ship that went around the world, and Alaska), she and her husband, Brian, settled in Cardiff, CA, with their family. The family is comprised of two teenage humans Dylan and Cassidy, two dogs, two bunnies, and one horse. When asked how her husband felt about their collection of animals, she reluctantly admitted that she is no longer allowed to visit animal shelters unsupervised.

When Suzi is not providing excellent service to her small business and individual clients, she can be found skiing, practicing martial arts, traveling, or dragging her paddleboard to the beach. She also loves spending time in the sand with a good book (the book doesn’t even have to be that good!).

Hayes shares a similar path with other Dark Horse CPAs. Like her colleague Niki Potter, she was a Gaucho who got her accounting degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and moved to North County, San Diego. Like Suzi Drennen, she is a long-time resident of Cardiff (20 years!) who can be spotted at the beach on the reg. Like many DH CPAs, she started her career at one of the Big Four (Ernst & Young). And, like all Dark Horses, her desire to advance her career and life and to do something wildly different from "accounting as usual" lead her here. She loves problem-solving and learning new things in a collaborative fashion, so the move to Dark Horse...well, it just made sense.

Hayes grew up in Dallas, Texas but found a better lifestyle fit in Southern California after coming out for her undergrad studies. She decided to deepen her roots in the region by starting her career at E&Y in San Diego and, shortly after that, earning her MBA at San Diego State University. After working for 12 years in the corporate accounting and finance world, she decided to go out on her own, providing a host of accounting services to small businesses and startups. Along the way, she gained deep knowledge and experience in forensic accounting.

When not cleaning up and perfecting financial statements, you can find Hayes on a walk (with her yellow lab, Hank), a jog, hiking, camping, surfing, hanging out at the beach or watching her kids play sports. In other words, you probably won't find her inside. Hayes met her husband, Jeff, in college at UCSB and has been married to him for 20 years. They started their family in Cardiff, which includes the aforementioned 4-legged friend, Beau (15), Lyla (12) and Farrah (9). They are (surprise, surprise) quite active and always on the go, like their mom

For Mike Madden, life is a team game. Although he is of no relation to the late John Madden, he does boast his own impressive sports resume, including lettering in five sports in high school and winning two collegiate national titles with the USCD soccer team. After college, he found a new team in the world of emergency medicine. There, he spent over 20 years as a paramedic and firefighter. Mike believes great teams elevate each other to achieve something greater together than the sum of the individual parts. Having transitioned into public accounting later in his career, he really missed this team environment. That is, until he joined the Dark Horse team.

Mike began his accounting career in 2002 while moonlighting in tax prep for his fellow firefighters. This gig led to him becoming CTEC-Certified, then becoming an Enrolled Agent while working as a part-time associate. He then transitioned to a regional CPA firm where he earned his CPA license from the state of California. Later, he would start his own firm. He did all of this work in public accounting while remaining a full-time firefighter. Finally, in 2017 he merged his firm with a legacy firm in Encinitas. To say his path to running his own practice was nontraditional would be an understatement.

These days, playing competitive sports is not in the cards what with the various injuries sustained along the journey. Rather, he gets to live vicariously through the competitive endeavors of his three daughters, including water polo, swimming and softball. Of course, he still watches a lot of soccer (which he admits is probably too much). Taking advantage of the southern California sunshine and outdoor amenities, he also finds plenty of time to ride his bike, hike and surf.