Regulatory crunch puts more CPAs in boardrooms; Firms act to avoid getting cooked.(News)

Byline: cristina merrill

As news of Arthur Andersen's collapse and other corporate scandals mounted last year, Phil Laskawy, the former chairman and chief executive of Ernst & Young, expected to get a lot of calls criticizing his profession.

He was flooded, he says-but with welcome contacts. Last fall, he received no fewer than a dozen offers from Fortune 500 companies to join their boards.

``It was pretty extraordinary,'' he says. ``I was suddenly very popular.'' In January, he joined the boards of two of the largest companies in the country, General Motors Corp. and Loews Corp.

Mr. Laskawy's story is not unique. Thanks to increased government scrutiny and a new emphasis on better corporate governance, accountants' financial skills are at a premium. The image of the slightly nerdy, behind-the-scenes numbers …