Leadership Named Of The ERISA Advisory Council

Archived News Release — Caution: Information may be out of date.

Michael J. Gulotta of Annandale, N.J. and Rosemary Abelson of Hermosa Beach, Calif. were named as the chair and vice chair of the Advisory Committee on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefits, an advisory committee to the Secretary of Labor and known more broadly as the ERISA Advisory Council. The Council is established by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).

New Chair Gulotta chaired the Advisory Council’s 1999 working group which studied utilizing pension surplus to fund retiree health care. President and chief executive officer of Actuarial Sciences Associates, Inc., Gulotta fills the Advisory Council’s actuarial post. He also serves as an enrolled actuary for several large U.S. pension plans, including AT&T and Lucent Technologies. He is a former board member of the Association of Private Pension and Welfare Plans and has served on committees of the ERISA Industry Committee and Financial Executives Institute.

New Vice Chair Abelson served as vice chair of the 1999 working group studying trends in the defined benefit market toward hybrid plans. An employer representative on the Council, she is assistant treasurer and director of investments and trust management for Northrup Grumman Corp. With 30 plus years of experience in the employee benefits field, she oversees the company’s $17 billion pension fund, one of the nation’s top 25 largest private pension plans. Until 1996, she headed pension, savings and welfare plan administration for all of Northrup Grumman.

Recently named new members of the Council are James S. Ray of Washington, DC, a senior partner of Connerton & Ray, representing employee organizations; Catherine L. Heron of Los Angeles, Calif., assistant general counsel of the Capital Group Companies (CGC) of Los Angeles, representing investment management; Carl T. Camden of Troy, Mich., executive vice president of field operations, sales and marketing for Kelly Services, Inc., representing corporate trust; Timothy J. Mahota, general counsel, Integral Development, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., representing employer organizations, and Evelyn Adams of Miami, Fla., a 23-year IBM employee active in cash balance pension plan conversion issues, representing the general public.

They will join returning members, including Gulotta and Abelson, at the Advisory Council’s first meeting on Monday, April 3. The session at 1:30 p.m. will be held in the Secretary’s Conference Room, S-2508, at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Frances Perkins Building at 200 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20210.

Returning members are Judith F. Mazo, senior vice president and director of research, the Segal Company in Washington, and Judith Ann Calder, chief executive officer of the Abacus Financial Group, Inc., of Chicago, both representing employee organizations; Patrick N. McTeague of Topsham, Me., founding partner of McTeague, Higbee, MacAdam, Watson and Cohen, and Richard Tani of Chicago, retired from William M. Mercer, both representing the general public; Michael J. Stapley of Salt Lake City, Utah, president and chief executive officer, Deseret Mutual Benefit Association, representing the insurance field; Eddie C. Brown, president of Brown Capital Management in Baltimore, Md., investment counseling; Janie Greenwood Harris, trust counsel for FIRSTAR Corporation, Inc., of St. Louis, Mo., the third employer organization representative, and Rebecca J. Miller, partner of McGladrey & Pullen, LLP of Rochester, Minn., accounting profession representative.

The ERISA Advisory Council is comprised of 15 members from statutorily specified subject areas in employee benefits and related fields. Members, who serve staggered three-year terms, have an explicit charter to provide the Labor Secretary with policy recommendations and reports relating to private pension and other employee benefit issues. Council members will decide what issues to examine during 2000 at the first meeting of the year.

Persons wishing to appear before the Advisory Council on April 3 or to submit written statements may do so by contacting Sharon Morrissey, executive secretary of the Advisory Council, at Room N-5656, Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration, Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20210. Her direct telephone number is (202) 219- 8921. If written statements are to be provided, 20 copies must be sent to Ms. Morrissey before March 28.

Persons with disabilities wishing to attend the session and needing special accommodations can also contact Ms. Morrissey by March 28.

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