EBSA Press Release: Five New Members Named to ERISA Advisory Council [12/31/1996]

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

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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.