EBSA Press Release: Labor Secretary Names Chairs for ERISA Advisory Council [02/26/1998]

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

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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.