|
 Printer-Friendly Version
OPA News Release: [03/15/2002]
Contact Name: Debra
Golding
Secretary Elaine L. Chao Announces
New Members of ERISA Advisory
Council
New Members Bring Expertise in Key Areas
WASHINGTON – Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao today named
five new members to the Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Plans
(ERISA Advisory Council). The new members are David L. Wray of Illinois, John
J. Szczur of Maryland, Michele M. Weldon of Massachusetts, Judy E. Weiss of New
York, and Dana M. Muir of Michigan. The ERISA Advisory Council members are to
fill statutorily designated fields for three-year terms.
“These five distinguished individuals bring a wealth of experience
and expertise in their respective fields,” stated Chao. “I know that
they and the returning members of the Advisory Council will work hard in
considering issues important to the security of workers’ benefits while
supporting employers’ efforts to provide benefits in this voluntary
system.”
Representing employers is David Wray, president of the Profit Sharing
and 401(k) Council since 1987. Wray has testified before numerous congressional
committees, as well as the Department of Labor, the Treasury Department and the
Internal Revenue Service on issues related to defined-contribution plans. He
brings a wealth of information about trends in retirement plans. He also serves
on the board of directors and executive committee of the Stable Value
Association and was president from 1994 to 1996 of the International
Association for Financial Participation, an alliance of organizations promoting
the use of employee financial-participation programs.
As a representative of Employee Organizations, John Szczur brings 17
years of experience to the Council. Szczur serves as the director of
investments for the Central Pension Fund of the International Union of
Operating Engineers and Participating Employers, the fifth largest Taft-Hartley
Fund in the United States. Previously he was a senior investment analyst with
the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and a senior financial
analyst with the Washington Gas and Light Company. He is past president of the
Washington Society of Investment Analysts and a member of the Association for
Investment Management and Research (AIMR).
Michele Weldon, director in the Financial Services Industry Practice
group of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP’s Audit and Business Advisory
Services is named to the Accounting position. She has specialized in employee
benefit plans and ERISA collective investment fund audits since 1990, managing
approximately 100 employee benefit plan audits for more than 50 Boston office
clients each year. A frequent speaker at industry conferences on employee
benefit plans, she is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public
Accountants’ Employee Benefit Plans Audit Guides Revisions Task Force and
previously served on AICPA’s Employee Benefit Plans Committee.
Judy Weiss will represent the Insurance field on the Council. Weiss
serves as vice president in charge of retirement and savings business matters
for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. She works on a broad range of
retirement savings issues confronted by plan sponsors, plans participants and
service providers, with an expertise in a diversity of retirement vehicles and
designs. Her prior responsibilities included her role as Chairman and CEO of
MetLife Bank and Chief Actuary for the company during its demutualization
process. In addition, Ms. Weiss has served as the head of Corporate Planning
and Corporate Risk Management, the Small Business Center, and Pension Corporate
Accounts, as well as CFO for the Pensions Department.
As an associate professor of business law at the University of Michigan
Business School specializing in employee benefits law, Dana Muir brings a broad
spectrum of experience in representing the General Public on the Council. She
worked in human resource management at the Chrysler Corporation for almost nine
years, and for two law firms, Dykema Gossett in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and
Winston & Strawn in Chicago, Ill., in the employee benefits area as well as
corporate and tax law. She was a Congressional Fellow in the office of Rep.
Robert Portman in 2000 and has written widely in the employee benefits field,
having published works in many academic publications and law reviews.
Wray and Muir were both delegates at the recent 2002 National Summit on
Retirement Savings.
Returning members of the Council include Robert B. Patrician, research
economist, Communications Workers of America of Washington, DC; Thomas McMahon,
senior vice president, Finance and Administration, Pacific Maritime Association
of San Francisco; Catherine L. Heron, assistant general counsel, Capital
Research and Management, Inc. of Los Angeles; Ronnie Susan Thierman, senior
consultant, William Mercer Inc., San Francisco: James S. Ray, The Law Office of
James S. Ray, Alexandria, Va.; Evelyn F. Adams, IBM Business Continuity and
Recovery Services of Washington, DC; Timothy J. Mahota, general counsel,
Integral Development of Mountain View, Calif.; Carl T. Camden, president, Kelly
Services Inc. Troy, Mich. and Norman Stein, law professor, University of
Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Shlomo Benartzi of the University of California at Los
Angeles recently stepped down from the Council because of health concerns. A
vacancy announcement for the investment-counseling field will be printed in the
Federal Register soon.
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) provides for
the establishment of an Advisory Council to make recommendations to the
department on current employee benefit issues. The Council consists of 15
members appointed by the Secretary of Labor to serve staggered three-year
terms. According to the statute, the 15 positions on the Council are to
represent various constituencies with interests in ERISA plans, such as
employers, employees, the general public, as well as the actuarial, accounting,
corporate trust, investment counseling and management and insurance fields.
# # #
_________________________________________________________________
| |
|
