Teen CPA: Caleb Byers earns his license before age 20

What does a 17-year-old licensed pilot do to earn his CPA license before turning 20?

He makes time fly.

On Dec. 3, 2025, exactly three months before his 20th birthday, Caleb Byers became a licensed CPA in Florida. After finishing high school a year early, Byers needed only about two-and-a-half years to earn a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree, pass the CPA Exam, and complete one year of professional experience as an audit associate at top-10 firm Forvis Mazars.

“I wanted to work in the business world, but I wasn’t super intrigued by the idea of spending four years in college, going into debt,” Byers said. “I wanted to spend my time making money instead of taking money out of my pocket.”

After earning his college degrees at Western Governors University – the same online school attended by a 15-year-old who passed the CPA Exam – Byers needed less than eight months to pass the four sections of the CPA Exam, with an average score of 94.7.

“A lot of people, they’re like, ‘You must be some crazy genius nerd,’” Byers said. “But the truth is, I think I’m just a pretty normal guy.”

Early exposure

Before he was a teenager, Byers was comfortable working with spreadsheets. He put those skills to use in planning a three-month family trip to the West Coast in an RV.

“I always thought it was super cool to be able to travel, bring your whole living room and everything with you,” Byers said. “I think I was 12. I set up a nice big spreadsheet with all the dates – arrival dates, calculating the departure dates, and then the next arrival dates – very basic spreadsheet stuff compared to what I’m doing now.

“We printed that thing out, had it up on the dash all the time. But we had it pretty well memorized by the time we set out.”

Travel was in Byers’s blood before the Excel-enabled RV adventure. The backyard of his childhood home in Delray Beach, Fla., is a small airport, complete with a runway and hangar. His father, Steve, a “serial entrepreneur” in Caleb’s words, is the founder of Airfield Mat Systems, Inc., which manufactures mats that protect above-ground airport lights from mishaps during mowing.

Around age 13, Caleb took over website design duties for the company, and about three years later he got his first accounting exposure by helping with bookkeeping. Being home-schooled, he said, gave him flexibility to grow those business skills.

“Being able to spend a lot of time with my family and getting that early exposure to real life and real business, that really helped me with critical thinking,” Byers said. “I struggled just as much as anyone else with stuff like algebra. I never really considered myself super academically astute, but what I really attribute my success to is being able to think outside the box.”

Primarily taught by his mother, Cherie, who is now home-schooling Byers’s 16-year-old sister, Grace, Caleb completed his high school education a year early. He pondered pursuing a career as a pilot before turning to accounting.

“I didn’t want to be walking around with my head in the clouds too much,” Byers said with a laugh. “I ended up choosing the accounting path as a career because it seemed something that was pretty stable and a good opportunity for career growth. I like numbers and I like relating numbers in business contexts.

“It was right up my alley.”

Learning to fly

“It’s been a few months now, and I’m very comfortable with it. I enjoy having my independence.”

In October 2025, Byers relocated to the Forvis Mazars office in Tampa, more than four hours from his family’s Delray Beach home. During a recent video interview on a work-from-home day, Byers admitted that his decision to fast-track college meant he “skipped that party stage of life.”

He needed just five months to earn a bachelor’s degree in business administration in early 2023. He needed only three more months to earn a master’s degree in accounting.

“I have a hard time really relating to someone who’s 18, 19, 20 years old, but I get along great with my co-workers who are 27,” Byers said. “But ultimately, it was a good thing for me because I was able to really focus on building something that I really enjoy and am really happy with.”

Byers spent his first year with Forvis Mazars close to home in Boca Raton.

“I don’t think they actually knew how young I was when I was first interviewing with them and when I got the offer. But after I started, word started getting around that I was 18 and everyone was pretty surprised by that,” he said. “I’ve always tried to keep it quiet at the beginning and let people judge me for who I am and the work I do.”

Byers said he first became familiar with the Tampa office when he helped with an IPO audit for a Tampa-area client during his first busy season.

“Baptism by fire,” he said.

“I’m really happy with my job. I love my team. I like the company I work for,” Byers said. “I’m still very early in my career, of course, so it’s hard to say where the opportunities will lead. I can see myself advancing to senior manager and beyond with this company. I’m not opposed to the idea of partner track in public accounting, but I may enjoy being a controller or a CFO someday.

“As a pilot, I’m still very passionate about the aviation industry. I always thought it would be kind of cool if there was an opportunity to leverage both my accounting and my aviation knowledge in my career one day if that opportunity presents itself.”

Whatever lies ahead, it’s obvious that Byers is going places.

— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Bryan Strickland at Bryan.Strickland@aicpa-cima.com.