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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: (202) 219-8921
Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman today named Marilee
Pierotti Lau of San Francisco, Calif. as chair of the Advisory Council on
Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans, which is more commonly known as the
ERISA Advisory Council. Also named as the council's vice chair was Kenneth S.
Cohen of Amherst, Mass.
The advisory council, comprised of 15 members named by the
Secretary of Labor and representing various segments of the employee benefits
community, submits policy recommendations concerning the implementation of the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).
Representing the accounting field on the council during her
three-year term, Lau is an audit partner located in the San Francisco office of
KPMG Peat Marwick LLP. She is a member of the Western Region Compensation and
Benefits Practice specializing in audits of employee benefit plans and serves
as the employee benefit resource partner for the region. She is responsible for
providing support to audit engagement teams in the delivery of employee benefit
services to clients as well as for training, technical consulting and
completing second partner reviews of plan financial statements.
Originally nominated to the council by the American
Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), of which she is a member,
Lau is a certified public accountant as well as a member of the California
Society of Certified Public Accountants and the Western Pension and Benefits
Conference. In 1997, she spearheaded the Advisory Council's Working Group on
Employer Assets in Employer-Sponsored ERISA Plans.
Lau is active in the AICPA and has served on its employee
benefits plans committee. She is currently her firm's representative on the
AICPA's relations with actuaries committee. Lau is a frequent speaker at
professional conferences and programs relating to accounting and auditing for
employee benefit plans.
Serving the council in his third year as the insurance
industry representative, Kenneth Cohen is a senior vice president and associate
general counsel of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance in Springfield, Mass.,
where he is chief legislative counsel responsible for federal regulation and
legislation. He is the immediate past chair of the pension committee of
American Council of Life Insurance, a member of both the American Bar
Association and its sections on taxation and labor law, and the Association of
Life Insurance Council. For several years he was a member of the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce's health and employee benefits committee.
An author of numerous articles on pension, tax insurance
and ERISA issues, Cohen is a frequent lecturer at legal seminars. He chaired
the ERISA Advisory Council's 1997 Working Group on Defined Contribution v.
Defined Benefit Plans With a Focus on Small Business Concerns.
The two will assume leadership at the group's first full
member meeting, set for April 7th 1:30 p.m. in the Secretary's Conference
S-2508 at the U.S. Department of Labor's Frances Perkins Building at 200
Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20210. The council's seven newest
members also will be sworn in and the council will decide on the topics it will
study for 1998.
New members filling three-year terms on the council include
Judith Calder of Glencoe, Ill., chief executive officer of Abacus Financial
Group; Richard Tani of Mount Prospect, Ill., retirement consultant with William
M. Mercer, Inc.; Michael Gulotta of Annandale, N.J., president and chief
executive officer of the Actuarial Sciences Associates; Eddie C. Brown of Glen
Arm, Md., president of Brown Capital Management; and Rose Mary Abelson of
Hermosa Beach, Cal., assistant treasurer and director of investments and trust
management for Northrup Grumman Corp. Named to fill two unexpired one-year
terms are Janie Greenwood-Harris of St. Louis, Mo., senior attorney for
Mercantile Bancorporation, and Judith Mazo of Washington, D.C. senior vice
president and director of research for the Segal Company.
Returning members are James O. Wood of Baton Rouge, La.,
executive director of the Louisiana State Employees' Retirement System
(LASERS); J. Kenneth Blackwell of Cincinnati, Ohio, treasurer of the state of
Ohio; Thomas J. Mackell, Jr. of Jackson, Wyo., executive vice president of
Simms Capital Management Inc. of Greenwich, Conn.; Michael R. Fanning, chief
executive officer of the Central Pension Fund, International Union of Operating
Engineers and Participating Employers; Neil M. Grossman, vice
president/national director of legislative and legal research, Association of
Private Pension and Welfare Plans (APPWP), and Barbara Ann Uberti, vice
president of Wilmington Trust Company of Wilmington, Del. Manning and Grossman
reside in the Washington area.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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