Bloom grad Carl Hoecker retires as SEC inspector general
South Chicago Heights native spent more than nine years leading office
Growing up in South Chicago Heights, Carl Hoecker spent a lot of his time pedaling around on his Schwinn Sting-Ray bicycle, playing sandlot baseball and wondering what the future would bring.
As it turned out, it brought an illustrious career as a criminal investigator, certified fraud examiner and certified public accountant that recently came to a close as Hoecker retired from his position as the inspector general of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
While overseeing internal audits and investigations in this role, Hoecker led a staff of 4,400 employees and a $1.6 billion annual budget in conducting independent internal audits and examinations of the SEC.
“I always planned on retiring sooner than later,” he said. “I love the government. It’s why I stayed in for so long, but I thought this was as good of a time as any, and I didn’t want to go through the transition back to the office so I thought I’d retire, take a month off and see what’s going on.”
Having spent the past two years working from home shaved at least 90 minutes off Hoecker’s daily commute.
“I’ve really enjoyed the commute of going from my bedroom down to my office,” he said. “I can’t say that was the major factor, but I got used to it. Most government (employees) have been out of the office and working out of the home for the last two years.”
Hoecker led the office of the inspector general for the SEC from Feb. 11, 2013 until May 7 of this year.
“I thank Carl for his long dedication to public service, in particularly here at the SEC over the last nine years,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. “The Office of Inspector General, as an independent reviewer, is a critical partner in identifying ways to improve the SEC’s efforts to execute its mission.”
After graduating from Bloom High School in Chicago Heights, Hoecker joined the Army and spent six years in the military police. Upon returning home he enrolled at Governors State University in 1982 and a few years later earned a degree in business while pursuing a passion for accounting.
“I liked the accounting, and the marketing as well, and I really hit it off with the accounting professor there (at GSU) and that just kind of turned me into a numbers person,” he said. “But law enforcement was a bigger draw for me. So when I worked in the Army on fraud cases where contractors were ripping off the government, it was exciting to follow the money and see where they shouldn’t have gotten paid, the misrepresentation or when we didn’t get what we were asking for.”
After working for seven years as a special agent for the Army Criminal Investigations Command, Hoecker took on his first role in an inspector general’s office, spending over 11 years in the U.S. Treasury Department, from 1995 until 2006 while also earning his CPA.
“Once I got my CPA it seemed like the doors opened up for me,” he said. “How a CPA thinks and an investigator thinks are almost opposite ends of the spectrum. It’s kind of like a cross fertilization on the way I look at different issues that come in.”
He ascended to the role of the first-ever inspector general of the U.S. Capitol Police in 2006.
“When I talk to some of the junior folks in the inspector general community about my career, I tell them my career has been zigzag,” he said. “I didn’t know what an inspector general was. I knew what cops and FBI agents did and saw them on TV but I didn’t even know what a CPA was. I’ve just always been a lifetime learner.”
Continuing to learn new things and take on new challenges is what has fostered a prestigious career in government for Hoecker.
“I’m still teaching myself stuff,” he said. “I’m learning a programming language called Python for data analysis. It’s good to learn something outside the path that you want to go on because you never know how well that diversity will help you out. I’m living proof of different disciplines.”
As thousands of area high school seniors prepare to graduate, some with an idea of what they hope to become and others about as certain as Mother Nature in the Chicago area in the spring, Hoecker’s advice is learn, learn, learn.
“I would tell younger folks to just learn as much as they can,” he said. “And on the ancillary side, if they have an opportunity to learn something they’ve never heard of, go ahead and do it. If you love sports medicine and love sports and want to go into sports medicine or become a physical therapist, why not take philosophy or psychology courses? Try something outside of it because you never know how it’s going to help you out and give you leverage and the competitive benefit later in life.”
While retirement will eliminate his daily commute, it will unfortunately take away some of that social wellness that Hoecker really has enjoyed.
“In my particular office, I have some great people, and I hired most of the them when I rebuilt this office,” he said. “That’s what I miss about the office now, the walking around and making my rounds. I’ll miss that. The ‘How is your family? How are your kids doing? Are they doing travel soccer?’ I’ll miss those interactions.”
He’ll also miss seeing the results of his team’s meticulous work, something that he learned early in life with a paintbrush in hand.
“As a kid I loved painting my grandfather’s house because once I was done, I was done and could see it finished,” he said. “For a lot of jobs you’re a part of the process but you don’t see the end outcome so you don’t have visibility to that, but when you do, which I do, it’s very satisfying.”
Hoecker now makes his home in Virginia, but the government watchdog will never forget where he got started.
“I grew up in South Chicago Heights and went to St. Anne’s which is a parking lot now on Chicago Road,” he said. “Everybody knew everybody where I grew up. If you were a kid and acted out a little bit, your parents got a phone call from one of the neighbors.”