Who you work with
A career of fixing the mess, then building what sells
Shawn grew up in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, bagging groceries and stocking the dairy case at More 4. He paid his way through college selling cell phones for Cellular One, graduated with no student loans, and was named the North Dakota region's part-time sales rep of the year in 2000. That job taught him something most accountants never learn: how to listen to a customer.
| John C. Todd II, P.C. | Senior Auditor, 2003 to 2006. A Phoenix CPA firm auditing charter schools, school districts, governments and nonprofits. Audit taught him how buyers and bankers test a set of books. |
| Avella Specialty Pharmacy (formerly The Apothecary Shops) | Accounting Manager, 2007 to 2012. He went three years back to restate the books under GAAP, built the monthly close and the controls, and led the conversion to Microsoft Dynamics. The company grew from about $50M to about $500M in revenue and sold to private equity. |
| Integrity Rx Specialty Pharmacy | Executive Vice President of Financial Operations, 2014 to 2019. When the new owners of Avella cut middle management, a pharmacist who left at the same time asked Shawn to help build a new pharmacy from concept. He secured 40 state licenses and $3M in SBA financing, and the company reached $50M and sold to private equity in four and a half years. He owned no equity in either pharmacy. |
| High Rock Accounting | Head of Accounting, then Chief Financial Officer, 2019 to 2026. He led fractional CFO and controller work for SaaS, healthcare, biotech and pharmaceutical clients, spent a couple of years leading Rebel Rock Accounting, High Rock's cannabis brand, and ran the clinical trial accrual accounting for a pharmaceutical company that later went public. He was featured in Ramp's Accountant Spotlight series. |
On his 48th birthday he left to build the firm he always wanted, and opened Island Waters the next day, July 1, 2026.
Launch. Scale. Exit. Beach.
The whole road, not one leg of it
Launch
Books a buyer will trust and a monthly close you can rely on.
Scale
Forecasts, 13-week cash and board reporting that hold up.
Exit
A 12 to 24 month Exit Program so diligence finds nothing.
Beach
Your windfall, your time, your choice of what comes next.
Our service standards: books closed by business day 10 (day 7 on Scale and Exit), a reply the same business day, and your KPIs in front of you every week.
Beyond the numbers
The Hawaiian shirt is not a costume, it is the point. It started as Hawaiian Shirt Fridays, a couple of free hours every Friday for anyone with a finance question, and it is now 30-plus shirts and a brand. Marketing experts gave it a D minus. People still stop Shawn at every conference to ask about the shirt, and that is usually where the real conversation starts. Relaxed and warm on the surface, rigorous underneath.
How we are built
A modern firm by design
Senior judgment is the product. A carefully built AI-first operating system lets one experienced operator deliver it with the speed and consistency a much larger team would need. That keeps your cost down and your turnaround fast. The machine drafts and reconciles; Shawn reviews every number before it reaches you.
What we stand for
Calm in the storm
When the numbers turn scary, you get a steady hand so you can decide from clarity, not fear.
Character when no one is watching
We keep confidences absolutely and own our mistakes fast.
We advise, you decide
Senior judgment said plainly, then the decision handed back, because it is your business and your call.
The boundary, said plainly
We are not a CPA firm and we do no attest work, no legal advice, and no investment advice. Your taxes are handled by a tax partner we trust, under a separate engagement, with Island Waters as your single point of contact through preparation and filing. We will always tell you when something belongs with your attorney or another licensed professional, because swimming in our lane is part of how we protect you.
Questions founders ask
About the firm
- Are you a CPA firm? Do you do taxes or audits?
- No, Island Waters is not a CPA firm, and we do no attest work, no audits, reviews, or compilations. We do not prepare or file taxes ourselves either. Instead, we outsource your tax work to a tax partner we trust, under a separate engagement you pay directly, while Island Waters remains your single point of contact through both preparation and filing. We lead with two decades of lived operator experience rather than a license.
- Do you provide legal or investment advice?
- No. We are not attorneys or investment advisers. On a contract, a financing, or a transaction, we work alongside your attorney and your other advisers, bringing the financial side while they handle theirs.
- How do you keep my financial data secure?
- Client financial data is treated as sensitive from day one, on a locked down, encrypted workstation, with managed identity, login credentials in a dedicated password manager, and an encrypted network. We never collect sensitive financial data through this website.
- How does AI factor into your work?
- AI is how we keep the cost down and the turnaround fast, not the thing you are buying. The line we never cross is simple: the machine drafts, the Founder validates and reviews, and nothing reaches you without a human's eyes on it first.
The first step
Have a conversation.
No pitch, no pressure. Bring one finance question to Founder Fridays, a free 30-minute slot every Friday from 10 AM to noon Arizona time, or book a 15-minute fit call.
Book Founder Fridays See If We Are a Fit (15 minutes)