2020 Featured Speakers

Presented in alphabetical order.

Rome Aloise
Western Conference of Teamsters

Rome is Secretary-Treasurer and Principal Officer of Teamsters Local 853, which represents more than 16,000 members throughout Northern California. He is also president of the Teamsters Joint Council No. 7 Executive Board, the 3rd largest Joint Council in the nation, serving more than 100,000 members in Northern California and Western Nevada. Rome has been in the Teamsters union since 1967. He was hired as an organizer by the Western Conference of Teamsters in 1975, and soon elected as an officer of Local 853 in 1977.  Since 1992, as Local 853’s Secretary-Treasurer and Principal Officer, he has been responsible for directing the representation and negotiations for the members working in the dairy industry, warehousing, liquor sales, beer and soft drink distribution, construction and its related industries, graphic communications, automotive industries, food production and packaging, and the newspaper industry.

Alan Biller
Alan Biller & Associates

Alan is president and chief executive officer of Alan Biller &  Associates, a role in which he oversees more than $75 billion in assets. He founded his investment firm in 1982 after serving as director of another investment firm, SRI International. Alan frequently writes articles for such publications as Pensions & Investments, The Economist and Employee Benefits Journal.

Tim Barron
Segal Marco Advisors

Tim is a Senior Vice President and the Chief Investment Officer of Segal Marco Advisors where he manages the firm’s Research Department and oversees all investment activities.

He has over 40 years of experience in the investment industry. Mr. Barron also chairs the Segal Marco Advisors’ Investment Committee and is on the Governing Committee of the Global Investment Research Alliance. He also serves on the firm’s Management Team, and is a member of both its’ Alpha Manager Review Committee, Discretionary Management Committee, and ESG Committee.

Tim is a frequent speaker and panelist at industry events and webinars, and has presented at conferences hosted by the IFEBP Investments Institute, Institutional Investor, the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, the Chartered Financial Analyst Society, and the National Public Employer Labor Relations Association. He has authored articles on a variety of investment trends and topics from Brexit to Investing in Volatile Markets to Responsible Investing and Behavioral Finance.

Larry Brown
NUPGE Canada

Larry represents public and general employees in Canada. Prior to becoming president of NUPGE Canada, he was CEO of the Saskatchewan Government Employees Association, one of 11 smaller unions that comprise the NUPGE. He has worked in the public sector since the 1970s. Larry also chairs the NUPGE pensions committee, which uses its clout to promote shareholder activism and social investment.

Cory Carlson
Washington Capital

Cory is Washington Capital’s President, Chief Investment Officer, Real Estate, and a member of the Board of Directors. Cory also chairs the firm’s investment committees. Cory joined Washington Capital in 1999 as portfolio manager for real estate equity portfolios.

Prior to joining WaCap, Cory spent 18 years at Weyerhaeuser Realty Investors where he was a regional investment manager, responsible for identifying, investing, and managing a broad range of real estate investments. At Weyerhaeuser, he was also involved in client relations and marketing, particularly with overseas investors in WRI projects.

Dan Doonan
National Institute on Retirement Security

Dan is executive director of the National Institute on Retirement Security, an organization dedicated to strategic planning of retirement research and education initiatives. Dan is co-author of Characteristics of Large Public Education Pension Plans, a detailed report considered to be a definitive resource of information about large public education retirement plans. He has more than 20 years of experience as a mathematical statistician, research director and labor economist.

Hank Kim
NCPERS

Hank is executive director and counsel for the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS), the largest public trade association in the United States. Prior to joining NCPERS, Hank served for six years as a governmental affairs representative for an international public-sector union, working on benefits, appropriations, homeland security and health care issues.

Matthew Kimbrough
SAG-AFTRA

Matthew has been a professional performer for over forty years appearing on stage, television and  film in over a hundred productions in cities all over the world.

He has dedicated the last 25 years to union service, serving as an officer of AFTRA, SAG and the merged SAG-AFTRA, ultimately serving as secretary treasurer until 2011. He continues as a trustee to both the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan and the AFTRA Retirement Fund as well as being the current treasurer of the SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union.

Jeff MacLean
Verus

Jeff is CEO of Verus. He has more than 28 years of investment and consulting experience, working with all asset classes for a range of clients including corporate defined-benefit plans, public institutions, multi‐employer trusts, endowments and foundations. Jeff volunteers for Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and he serves on the advisory board for the University of Washington Foster School of Business.

Congressman Andy Levin
Michigan’s 9th District

A union organizer, human rights activist, workforce policy expert and green energy entrepreneur, Congressman Andy Levin has spent his career fighting for an equitable and inclusive future for all people. Andy worked in Washington, D.C. as a staff attorney to the presidential Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations and also in the secretary’s office of the U.S. Department of Labor. He worked with unions and employers on legislation critical for workers’ rights including the National Labor Relations Act, the proposed TEAM Act, the Federal Transit’s Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. From 1995-2006, Andy served as Assistant Director of Organizing at the national AFL-CIO.

Jacques Loveall
UFCW Trust

Jacques is president of UFCW 8-Golden State and chairman of UFCW Trust, which funds pension and health care benefits for 125,000 active workers, dependents and retirees in the food and drug industries. He is a vice president of the UFCW International Union and a vice president of the California Labor Federation. He is also chairman of the Loveall Foundation for Children, a nonprofit charity dedicated to giving children an opportunity for a better life and enabling them to reach their full potential.

James Meketa
Meketa Investment Group

James founded Meketa Investment Group in 1978 to provide a broad range of strategic investment advisory services to institutional clients. He has more than 40 years of experience advising Taft-Hartley, public funds, corporate and endowment plans in investment policy design, global asset allocation, and analysis of manager and fund performance.

Peter Palandjian
Intercontinental Real Estate

Peter is chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Real Estate Corporation, a fully integrated real estate services firm, and an SEC-registered investment advisor with offices in Boston, New York, Orlando, Denver and Los Angeles. While overseeing Intercontinental’s affiliated operating companies, Peter is primarily responsible for Intercontinental’s investment strategy and institutional relationships.

Jason Russell
Segal Consulting

Jason is a senior vice president and actuary with Segal Consulting. He works primarily with multiemployer pension plans, assisting trustees in developing strategies for sustainability, as well as in restructuring financially distressed plans. Jason chairs the American Academy of Actuaries Multiemployer Pension Plans Committee, and in that capacity he has been actively involved in discussions related to multiemployer pension reform and legislation.

Michael Scott
NCCMP

Michael is the Executive Director for the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans (NCCMP). He has broad investment banking, advisory and public policy experience from serving in senior positions in the U.S. Government and the private sector.

Prior to NCCMP, Mr. Scott ran his own advisory business where he advised clients on federal credit, infrastructure, federal budget issues, public-private solutions, legislation and regulations, as well as GSE and housing finance reform.

At U.S. Department of the Treasury, Mr. Scott was responsible for federal credit, federal and private sector restructurings, privatizations, infrastructure finance, and government financial policy.