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SAN FRANCISCO — Bette Briggs has been
named regional director of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Pension and
Welfare Benefits Administration in San Francisco, Calif.
As regional director, Briggs heads a staff of 50
investigators, auditors, and pension benefit advisors. She is responsible for
overseeing the operations of private- sector pension, health and other benefit
plans in the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Northern California,
Nevada and Utah.
Briggs will be responsible for enforcing
provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), overseeing
civil and criminal investigations, providing litigation support and serving as
the primary liaison to other federal and state enforcement authorities involved
in ERISA investigations. The agency also assists workers in understanding their
rights under ERISA and related laws and in obtaining benefits to which they are
entitled.
Before taking the San Francisco post, Briggs
served for nearly 10 years in the agency’s Office of Regulations and
Interpretations in Washington, D.C. While chief of the Fiduciary
Interpretations Division in Washington, D.C., she directed a staff of pension
law specialists and issued advisory opinions, information letters and
regulations interpreting ERISA’s fiduciary responsibility provisions.
She also served as an attorney with the Special
Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation division of the Solicitor of Labor. A
Wisconsin native, she holds B.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.
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