Long-time accountant joins CANCO as finance director

9 months ago

Dan Schroeder brings almost 30 years in the profession to his new role with Carl A. Nelson & Company

New Carl A. Nelson & Company (CANCO) Director of Finance Dan Schroeder began his duties with the firm Dec. 8, 2025. An accountant with 29 years of experience, Schroeder will succeed Tom Jones, who joined the firm in 2010 as controller. Jones was promoted to the finance director role in 2020, and has announced his decision to retire in 2027.

For the next year, Schroeder will work with Jones to learn CANCO's business operations, as well as the unique aspects of accounting in construction. Jones retains the role of board treasurer.

High school — he is a 1989 graduate of Burlington Notre Dame — is where Schroeder first discovered an interest in accounting. After three years in the Air Force and a brief fling with a studying for a career in healthcare, Schroeder switched majors to business administration - accounting, graduating in 1996 from the University of Iowa.

"I like to help people," he said, explaining the appeal of working with dollars and cents. "I like to help people with deciphering some of this information that can be difficult if you're not familiar."

Following graduation, Schroeder started out with McGladrey and Pullen in Burlington, then spent four years at Rheinschmidt Tile & Flooring as controller, before joining Winegard Company in 2004. He remained there until joining CANCO. Part of his role at Winegard included involvement at the factory level, not solely in the office. That experience, he said, gave him a better appreciation for the work of the company. His decision to pursue the opportunity at CANCO was to seek a new challenge, but also to return to a more direct accounting role. His exposure to the people at Carl A. Nelson & Company, he said, showed the firm's reputation in the community is well-deserved.

While his new position is a more traditional accounting-focused, the variety it will offer through the range of projects CANCO performs is appealing, he said. He's already familiar with percent-complete accounting from his days at McGladrey and Pullen, where he had several construction clients.

Having an entire year to work with Jones to learn the accounting and the systems at the firm "is phenomenal, and it speaks a lot for this company."

Away from work, Schroeder enjoys golfing, staying fit, following the Iowa Hawkeyes and Chicago Bears, and being active with DIY projects around home. He has five children, two of his own and three step-children; and five grandchildren.