IRS Enrolled Agent
Oregon Licensed Tax Consultant
B.S. Georgetown University

Melissa's professional tax career began in 2001 when she started working for a small tax practice in the mountains of North Carolina. She passed the Enrolled Agent exam in 2004. Melissa joined the National Association of Enrolled Agents (NAEA) soon after and earned the Fellow designation from NAEA's National Tax Practice Institute. She used her knowledge to assist taxpayers with their income tax filing obligations, and to represent taxpayers before the IRS and North Carolina Department of Revenue in audits, appeals, and collections.

After operating her own tax practice for 10 years, Melissa decided to head west, taking a position as a tax professional at a financial planning firm in Vancouver, Washington. While there, she enrolled in a financial planning program and earned her CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM designation in 2021.

Melissa was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in western Pennsylvania. She filed her first tax return at age 16 to report the earnings from her first job. She studied Japanese at Georgetown University. While living in Japan after graduation, she learned the ins and out of IRS Form 2555 as it applied to her own situation.