Unable to set up a new Secure Store Service Application in a single-server installation

Problem: after initial SharePoint installation, I tried to add the Secure Store Service Application under "Manager Services Applications".  The process screen returns something like "The time job created.  But failed to start in one or more servers in the farm."  Further investigation found that in the SQL Server, the secure service account was not added under the Login user accounts.  The Secure_Store_Service_DB has been created, but not under the name of secure store service account.  In another word, the database was created but the action seems to be incomplete.

Background: this is a single server farm installation on Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2, with AD CS and AD DS, DNS roles enabled on the same box.  The configuration task was running with the farm admin account which is also a domain admin, and has dbcreator, securityadmin, and sysadmin roles in the SQL server.