Cathy Johnson
Licensed Tax Consultant, Enrolled Agent and President of Silver Creek Financial Services, Inc.
In January 1977, I began Neal’s Tax & Accounting. My first clients were a local gas station owner who hired me to keep his books and a fabric store chain who paid me to balance their checking accounts. The next clients were two local carpenters, then a logging company. I quickly added tax preparation services to the accounting work, preparing 15 tax returns the first year.
In the early 1990s, I felt the business had grown way beyond just me and that it deserved a new name. Neal’s Tax & Accounting became Silver Creek Financial Services, Inc. The business has continued to grow both in the number of clients served, the number of professionals working to serve them, and the depth of knowledge and experience in our team. We are all thankful to our clients for their business, their trust and their loyalty.
When I am not in the office, I enjoy spending time with my grandchildren, cooking, hiking, reading and traveling. I also enjoy my involvement in the Lostine Presbyterian Church, Promise Investors, and the Oregon Association of Tax Consultants, where I serve as Vice-President in charge of continuing education at the local level, and state secretary.
Life is full and I am blessed!!
Shannon “Cissy” Shelton
Licensed Tax Consultant / Accountant
Cissy has been serving Silver Creek clients since 1990. In addition to her bookkeeping and payroll clients she specializes in family farming, education credits and non-profit tax preparation. She and her husband Skip live in Lostine and have four grown children. When not at work she enjoys spending time with her family, which now includes nine grandchildren. She loves to camp, travel, read and do hand crafts as well as volunteering for various charitable organizations.
Tracy Frei
Accountant
Tracy Frei joined the Silver Creek team in 1997 as our primary payroll professional and QuickBooks accounting specialist. Tracy moved to a part time, distance position in 2015. This has enabled her to spend more time with her four grown children and two grandchildren. She enjoys traveling, seeing and experiencing new things. Her favorite places to vacation are the happiest places on earth – Disney! She goes whenever possible.
Melissa Wight
Licensed Tax Consultant/Accountant
Melissa has worked at Silver Creek since 2001. She specializes in individual and business tax returns. Melissa and her husband, Dale, moved to Joseph in the mid-1980s and she soon thereafter started her own bookkeeping business. Melissa and Dale also own Eastern Oregon Window Services, a window and blind cleaning service. They have two grown children. She loves to travel and explore places in this country when she can. She is also very involved as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Linda Estes
Licensed Tax Preparer / Accountant
Linda joined Silver Creek in 2012. She has earned her tax preparer’s license and this year will be quality control. Her years of experience help us to produce accurate returns. Linda and her husband, Joe, have six children.
In her free time she enjoys horseback riding, camping and spending time with her family.
Kristen Brockamp
Licensed Tax Preparer/Accountant
Kristen Brockamp joined the Silver Creek team in 2015. Her expertise is in individual and business tax returns. Kristen and her husband, Matt, moved to Wallowa in 2009 where they own and operate Brockamp Land Surveying, LLC. This business background has helped Kristen quickly learn the art of preparing income tax returns. They keep busy with all the aspects of raising three busy children including their school athletics and activities. In any spare time Kristen can find in her busy life, she enjoys traveling, reading and being with her family.
Karen Wurdinger
Karen started working for Silver Creek Financial Services in 2015 as our front office gal. She is the one you will see at the beginning of the process and then again at the end. What she enjoys the most about working at Silver Creek is meeting all the wonderful people. She spent a total of 26 years in the Willamette Valley and 19 years in the middle of nowhere Nevada working in a gold mine. She and her husband, Dave, ended up in the beautiful Wallowa Valley in 2014. They both love it here. Over the years, she has done a little of everything – from waitressing, retail sales, and owning a successful outfitting business where she packed, guided, and cooked for hunters. Though she enjoys having an ‘inside’ job now, you will often see her during her time off enjoying her hobbies of working with horses/mules, packing into the back country, dog training, gopher trapping and of course hitting the yard sales around the county.
Jeanette Hibbert
Jeanette is a valuable part of our front office team. She helps manage the office while doing payrolls and accounting. Her desire to serve our clients and her sincere warmth bring joy to the office.
Jeanette and her husband have two children and enjoy spending time in the outdoors hiking and operating their little goat ranch. Besides working full-time at Silver Creek, Jeanette makes and sells hand-made soap from goat milk she milks herself.
Eric Arnoldus
Eric Arnoldus joined the Silver Creek team during 2019. He has 30 years of experience as a tax professional. He specializes in new businesses, having started several of his own over the years.
He has experience with truck driving, corrections, military, farms, rentals, wildland firefighting, and storage facilities. He also has experienced many aspects of the health care field, but not by vocation. He is an Army veteran who served for a year in Afghanistan He likes to see new business owners grow with their businesses, and feels their pride with them as they become successful.
His experience with different aspects of business and tax preparation has led to teaching classes for five organizations in Oregon and Idaho, which he enjoys. All of his clients are his friends, and many of his friends are his clients. He lives outside La Grande, where he and his wife have 64 acres of timber and pasture. He refers to the 64 acres as two miles of fences.