After Kirk Holt graduated from Payson High School in 1980, he boarded his first commercial flight. His next five weeks in New York were going to be demanding as he volunteered on the Hill Cumorah Pageant’s work crew, an opportunity his seminary teacher nominated him for.
Holt overcame a brief bout of homesickness and jumped into his role prepping stages, lighting, and props for the pageant; he even pulled weeds and tidied the grounds. But not long after Holt arrived, the director approached him about playing a nonspeaking part: young Joseph Smith.
“The director asked me to walk across the stage. That was my whole audition,” Holt says. “And walking was really all I did in the pageant: I walked up the Hill Cumorah, and the angel Moroni appeared to me.”
The pageant experience provided the nudge Holt needed to serve a mission. It also gave him his fill of life on the stage. “I love plays, but I don’t act,” he says.
Instead, accounting became Holt’s passion, a seed that was planted while he was a missionary in Melbourne, Australia. “My mission president was an accountant who worked for the FBI, which sounded exciting,” Holt recalls. “He shared stories about tracking car thieves, and that piqued my interest.”
Holt was also inspired by his parents who ran three auto parts stores in Utah County. “We worked hard as a family. My mom did a great job of keeping track of the books, and that spilled over onto me,” he says.
As a BYU Marriott student, Holt was influenced by a professor, Emory Sonderegger, who encouraged Holt with words that were plain but impactful. “One day he told me, ‘You’re a good accountant.’ Four words like that can make a huge difference in someone’s life,” Holt recalls. “It was a little thing, but I never forgot it.”
After earning his MAcc in 1988, Holt worked for a handful of CPA firms until he founded Holt CPA in Springville, Utah, in 1998. “It was a big leap of faith. We accountants like to crunch numbers and analyze things, so I did projections of different scenarios and decided to take the leap,” he recalls. “Numbers don’t lie. That’s what I like about accounting. I’m quite detailed about tracking numbers; it’s very rewarding. I can predict things. I can plan things. I can make decisions with numbers.”
Holt has worn several hats as he’s taken the lead role in growing his firm. “My favorite parts are meeting with clients and getting to know those folks on an individual basis,” he says.
One career highlight was helping his former BYU Marriott professor Dee Hubbard with a tax return. “That felt like coming full circle,” Holt says.
Outside of work, Holt is an avid hiker, camper, Dutch-oven cook, and fly fisherman. In the last few years, he’s also traveled to Israel, Jordan, France, and Italy with family. And, like any good accountant, Holt has created detailed itineraries for the adventures. He and his wife, Holly, have four children and two grandchildren.
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Written by Emily Edmonds
Holt's story is published in the Winter 2025 issue of Marriott Alumni Magazine, page 32.
