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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: (202) 219-8921
Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich today appointed five new members to
the Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans to represent
various sectors of the employee benefit field.
The 15 member advisory council, named by Secretary of Labor, submits
policy recommendations concerning the implementation of the Employee Retirement
Income Security Act (ERISA).
Representing the investment management profession will be J. Kenneth
Blackwell of Cincinnati, Ohio, treasurer of Ohio. As former ambassador to the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights and Deputy Under Secretary in the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Blackwell's first public
offices were on the Cincinnati City Council and as Mayor.
He was on the board of directors of Fifth/Third Bank in Cincinnati, a
member of the greater Cincinnati Urban Bankers' Association, and a former
independent public policy consultant and writer. He serves as a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations and on the boards of the Congressional Human
Rights Foundation, Physicians for Human Rights, the Greater Cincinnati Council
on World Affairs and the International Republican Institute.
Michael R. Fanning of Alexandria, Va., chief executive officer of the
Central Pension Fund of the International Union of Operating Engineers and
Participating Employers in Washington, D.C., will represent employee
organizations on the council. He became house counsel to the Operating
Engineers in 1975, assuming duties as general counsel and fund counsel in 1984.
Fanning has been active in the D.C. Bar Association, AFL-CIO Lawyers'
Coordinating Committee, National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer
Plans, Attorneys and Administrators and the International Foundation of
Employee Benefit Plans. He began his career as a staff attorney in the Office
of the Solicitor, U.S. Department of Labor, where he handled early ERISA cases
in its Plan Benefits Security Division.
Representing corporate trust will be Barbara Ann Uberti of Wilmington,
Del., who has managed the employee benefits trust division of the Wilmington
Trust Company for the past 10 years. The company serves as trustee of
approximately 500 qualified plans with more than $20 billion in assets and
provides full custodial duties, investment management, recordkeeping and
performance measurement to its clients.
Uberti chaired the board of advisors of the American Bankers'
Association's National Employee Benefits Trust School for the past three years.
An adjunct professor of business law at the University of Delaware, she was
with Drinker, Biddle and Reath in Wilmington and Coopers & Lybrand in
Philadelphia before joining Wilmington Trust. She testified before the ERISA
Advisory Council's working group on Third-Party Trustees as a Protection for
Plan Participants in 1996.
Named to the employer representative position was Neil M. Grossman, who
has been a vice president and national director of legislative and legal
research for W F. Corroon, an international employee benefits consulting firm
headquartered in a St. Louis suburb since 1992. Currently residing in
University City, Mo., Grossman will join the staff of the Association of
Private Pension and Welfare Plans (APPWP)in Washington as general counsel
effective January 1.
He has practiced employee benefits law since 1975, participating in
projects of national note including the federal reorganization of the Central
States Teamsters funds, President Carter's reorganization plan and ConRail's
initial public offering. In addition to serving on the board of the APPWP, he
is on the board of the Employee Benefit Research Institute and has written
articles on investment education. He is among those responsible for favorable
pension integration rules for railroads in the 1986 Tax Reform Act and for a
number of other pension-related initiatives.
Dr. Thomas J. Mackell, Jr. of Jackson, Wyo, executive vice president of
Simms Capital Management, Inc., of Greenwich, Conn., will represent the general
public on the Council. He is president of the Association of Benefit
Administrators in New York and editor of its newsletter "Insights." He is a
member of the ethics committee of the Investment Management Consultants'
Association and of the investment management committee of the International
Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.
Mackell's employee benefits career began in 1966 with the Marine
Engineers' Beneficial Association - Associated Maritime Officers which he
served for 14 years as administrator of their jointly-administered
multiemployer pension, health and other employee benefit funds. Since 1981, he
has been in the investment management business working with multiemployer,
single employer and public sector funds nationwide. He was a group leader with
Trust Company of the West and a director of the consulting group of Shearson
Lehman Brothers Consulting Services Division.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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