St. Louis Business Journal Names Alumnus to Prestigious “30 Under 30” Group 

Brad Crecelius, BA’14 in Accounting and Finance (Delta Tau Delta), cites Westminster College as integral in launching his accounting career and eventually landing him with the impressive designation as one of St. Louis’s “30 Under 30.” Crecelius received this St. Louis Business Journal award – presented by Washington University’s Olin School of Business – at a July 12 ceremony at Bissinger’s Caramel Room in downtown St. Louis. 

“I was very honored and humbled to receive such a designation,” Crecelius says, reflecting on the other recipients out of more than 200 nominated. “Every individual who received this award was absolutely remarkable, and it’s such an honor to be considered among them.” 

And yet Crecelius is not a slacker who happened to receive the award by accident. In 2016, he was promoted to senior associate in the Business Tax Service Group at the St. Louis branch of KPMG, considered one of the Big Four in global auditing firms, after working as an associate in the Tax Department for just over a year. In addition, he served as an instructor for new hires in the national KPMG CPA Training and Mentorship Program. Today he continues to mentor and instruct KPMG employees at the St. Louis office.  

Crecelius’s helpful attitude toward others can also be found in his efforts with the United Way, Angels’ Arms, and Friends of Kids with Cancer. Furthermore, he recently received the Chairman’s Award from the St. Louis KPMG office, which took place after a childhood and Westminster friend mentioned to Crecelius a business problem his company faced. Crecelius connected his buddy to others at KPMG, and eventually his business overcame its difficulty and became a new KPMG client. 

That problem-solving ability, which seems to be second nature to the Westminster College graduate, can be attributed to what Crecelius refers to as Westminster’s “real-world education.”  

“My Westminster education consisted of both classroom studies as well as real-world experiences that could be applied after graduation,” he says. “The book smarts I gained from the classroom were the basic building block needed to start my career, but it was the education in matters beyond just the classroom that really helped.” 

Crecelius received hands-on accounting and finance experience with the student-maintained Westminster Blue Blazers Investment Committee. Founded in 1996, Blue Blazers students manage actual portfolios while simultaneously learning about the industry and investment process. That experience led to the absolute summit of Crecelius’s Blue Blazers experience: a New York trip to Wall Street during his senior year. 

“It was a great opportunity to talk to professionals at the pinnacle of the finance field, and the networking event at the New York Athletic Club and dinner at Carmine’s Italian Restaurant were great opportunities to connect with people I hadn’t met before and to learn through their experiences and stories,” Crecelius reflects.      

Ultimately, networking is the theme of Crecelius’s conversation regarding Westminster. He says the college’s alumni base actively interacts with students by providing them with advice and assistance. “They are willing to go out of their way to help you find a long-term career,” he adds. 

Although obviously focused on that long-term career, the “30 Under 30” designee remains humble and says discovering his purpose at Westminster ultimately had little to do with title or position. “Leadership doesn’t necessarily mean being the person in charge,” Crecelius says. “But it means being the one people turn to for guidance.”  

And when he is not guiding, problem solving, or crunching numbers at KPMG, Crecelius unwinds by playing squash, walking his Golden Retriever, or swimming at the Missouri Athletic Club – a significant departure from his days at Westminster. “Nothing was better than spending the first couple of days on campus,” Crecelius reminisces, “sitting out on the Delt front lawn, around the kiddie pool we bought to help stay cool!”