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Ask any state CPA Society executive about what organizational issues keep them up at night and the declining number of "business and industry members" will undoubtedly be at the top of the list. For those of you not familiar with CPA Society lingo, business and industry members are CPAs who has left public accounting and work for companies ranging from family-owned businesses to Fortune 500 companies.

While the NJSCPA's membership has increased steadily over the last 10 years, the Society has lost more than 800 business and industry members during that same period of time, dropping that group's representation from 40 percent of the total NJSCPA membership to about 31 percent. I'm not privy to statistics from the AICPA or other state CPA societies, but I imagine that staff at those associations would tell a similar story.

So where did they go? Did they simply drop their society membership for personal or professional reasons? Or did they take an even more drastic step and let their CPA licenses expire and therefore had no more reason to be members of a CPA organization?

Although I'm not a CPA, I am aware of how much work is required to get licensed, so the latter explanation seems almost inconceivable to me. Why would someone spend hundreds of hours studying for and working toward achieving their goal of becoming a CPA, only to let it slip away, especially when the business environment seems so favorable for those holding a CPA license. Consider this:

• According to 2008 AICPA research, investors and business decision makers view CPAs more positively than any other business professional and are willing to pay a premium for them. (Watch Medco Health Solutions CFO Richard Rubino talk about why he maintains his CPA license.)
• According to that same research, CPAs themselves confirm that they earn more because they are CPAs.

Recent research also indicates that involvement in membership organizations can be beneficial to a CPAs career. In a recent poll conducted by Robert Half Management Resources, more than a quarter (28 percent) of chief financial officers (CFOs) interviewed said staying connected through professional groups is the best way for accounting and finance managers to enhance their professional visibility. (On a side note, active participation on social media sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter came in second, with 22 percent of the response, so be sure to look us up.)

Yet despite these facts there is anecdotal evidence that CPAs in business and industry are giving up their licenses because they don't think that they need it to get ahead. How we convince them otherwise will be a matter of discussion at CPA societies for months or even years.

Let us know if you have any thoughts on this subject.