Zac Bissonnette at BloggingStocks points out this morning the apparent need for grammar lessons at Usana Health Sciences. Every time a credential of an executive or director at Usana is found to be inaccurately reported in SEC filings, there is an exuse. Here’s the latest, in response the revelation that despite SEC filings indicating CFO Gil Fuller is a Certified Public Accountant, he does not hold a Utah CPA license:

It turns out that CFO Gil Fuller let his CPA license lapse in 1986, although recent SEC filings say that he has the credential. Utah state law state law doesn’t allow people to call themselves CPA’s unless they renew their license periodically and get continuing education units. But according to Fuller, it’s really not misleading: “I say Gil Fuller is a CPA. That is in my view an accurate statement. I should have gone on to say I let my license to practice public accounting expire.”

As Zac points out, if Gil had said he WAS a CPA (at one time), that may be accurate. On the other hand, saying he IS a CPA can’t possibly be accurate.

Apparently Mr. Fuller would have you believe that both of those sentences are accurate, but I think most readers would agree with me: Having been a CPA 21 years ago is different than being a CPA now. To learn more about this and other nuances of legal disclosures and tips for deciphering financial statements, check out this great website.

Zac also mentions a couple of the other credentials problems at Usana.

Here’s some more of Usana’s bizarre defenses for its credentials problems. When it was discovered that Dr. Timothy Wood, Vice President of Research and Development at the company, had a degree in forestry from Yale, although his biography in SEC filings said he had a degree in biology (which is more relevant to a nutritional company), Usana responded by saying that Wood’s dissertation was on a topic of biology and that he found it easier to describe his education by saying his degree was in biology.

I’ll bet! As Barry Minkow said, “Dr. Wood has a degree in Forestry but by golly Usana says it’s Biology, so Biology it is!” I have to admit it’s pretty cool that, in addition to selling vitamins, Usana can also confer degrees from an Ivy League institution. This business could be extremely lucrative, perhaps more so than the multi-level marketing. I’ve always wanted a degree in divinity…

The question is, who really believes these excuses???