2023 Featured Speakers

Presented in order of appearance.

Jacques Loveall
UFCW 8-Golden State / UFCW Trust

Jacques is president of UFCW 8-Golden State and chair of UFCW Trust, which administers 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 senior vice president of the California Labor Federation. He is also chair 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.

Defined-Benefit Plans — Now and Forward Panel

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.

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.

Rob Feckner
CalPERS

Rob is serving his sixth term on the CalPERS Board of Administration. He served as president of the board from 2005 through 2017. He has worked for the Napa Valley Unified School District for the past 43 years where he is currently employed as a glazing specialist. He is a past president and life member of the California School Employees Association, past executive vice president of the California Labor Federation and a two-time member of the Napa County Civil Grand Jury.

Christopher Heinz
Heinz Consulting

Christopher has 35 years of experience as a congressional lobbyist, national union political director, local union official, grassroots coordinator and labor relations consultant. His clients have included national, regional and local labor organizations, major companies and trade associations. Chris has worked in electoral and grassroots campaigns at the national, state and local levels. He previously served as the national political and legislative director for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America.

Jason Russell
The Segal Group

Jason is a senior vice president and actuary who serves as the Retirement Practice Leader for Segal’s East Region. Based in Washington, D.C., he has more than 20 years of actuarial and consulting experience working with multiemployer and single-employer retirement plans. He plays a leading role in assisting multiemployer pension plans across the country in navigating complicated situations. These situations include restructuring distressed plans, implementing alternative plan designs to ensure sustainability, exploring legislative solutions, and seeking assistance from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).

PBGC’s Special Financial Assistance Panel

Eric Dean
Ironworkers

Eric is the general president of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers. Born and raised in Chicago, Eric followed three previous generations of his family into the trade by joining Ironworkers Local Union 63. He has held offices at the local level, was an apprentice instructor for the International and served as general organizer, general vice president, general secretary and now general president.

Guy Pinkman
Lincoln Police and Fire Pension / PBGC Advisory Board

Guy is a trustee for the City of Lincoln Police and Fire Pension Plan Investment Board in Lincoln, Nebraska. In addition, he was a captain/paramedic with the Lincoln Fire and Rescue Department for more than 30 years. He is a two-time Presidential appointee to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). He has completed studies in finance worldwide, including China’s monetary system.

Jason Russell
The Segal Group

Kirk Vogt
UFCW 8-Golden State/UFCW Trust

Kirk is secretary-treasurer of UFCW 8-Golden State, which represents some 35,000 members who work in grocery and drug stores, food-processing plants and offices from the Oregon border in the north to Kern County in the south. Kirk has extensive experience in collective bargaining and is widely recognized for his high standards of service to Union members, his extraordinary talents as a Union administrator and his detailed knowledge of pension and health & welfare trust funds. He serves as a Union trustee in the UFCW & Employers Benefit Trust of Northern and Central California and the UFCW-Northern California Employers Joint Pension Trust Fund.

Workers’ Capital/Engagement Panel

Sarah Bernstein
Meketa Investment Group

Sarah has nearly 20 years of experience as an institutional investment consultant who is focused on ESG and sustainability issues. She joined the Meketa Investment Group in 2019 as part of the merger between Meketa and Pension Consulting Alliance (PCA). Prior to joining PCA in 2002, Sarah was an equity analyst with several Wall Street firms, including Kaufman Bros., First Union Capital Markets Corp., and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray.

Marcie Frost
CalPERS

As CalPERS CEO, Marcie oversees a $1.6 billion budget and three lines of business: pensions, health benefits and investments. With an investment portfolio of about $485 billion, CalPERS is the country’s largest public pension plan, administering a defined benefit retirement system for 2 million California public employees and their families. CalPERS also is the nation’s second-largest purchaser of health care, covering more than 1.5 million people.

Fred Redmond
AFL-CIO

Fred is the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. On June 13, 2022, he was unanimously elected to the position as the highest ranking African American officer in the history of America’s labor movement. He was first elected to this position by the AFL-CIO Executive Council on Aug. 20, 2021. He filled the vacancy of the executive vice president position from March to June 2022 and has served on the federation’s Executive Council since 2008.

Maureen O’Brien
Segal Marco Advisors

Maureen is a senior vice president in Segal Marco Advisors’ Chicago office. Ms. O’Brien has extensive experience in shareholder advocacy and specializes in engaging companies on behalf of investors. Maureen leads corporate engagements on behalf of Segal Marco’s clients and oversees the proxy voting service. Her work in shareholder advocacy began in 2003 as a Research Analyst for the Investor Responsibility Research Center.

Stephen Sleigh
Sleigh Strategy LLC

Stephen started his own consulting service in 2015 after serving as the Fund Director for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) multi-employer pension, savings, and health plans. Steve’s consulting business, provides strategic advice for aligning the interests of business, labor and investors, and is closely affiliated with leading responsible investors.

David Webber
Boston University School of Law

David is the author of the critically-acclaimed book, The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon, published by Harvard University Press. He is the winner of Boston University School of Law’s 2017 Michael Melton Award for Teaching Excellence, and the dean’s award for service to the law school in 2020 and 2021. He also co-teaches the Pensions and Capital Stewardship course for the Harvard Trade Union program at Harvard Law School. He is a graduate of Columbia and NYU Law School, where he was an editor for the law review.

Consultants Panel

David Brenner
Segal Marco Advisors

David is a senior vice president based in Segal’s Boston office. He serves as the national director of multiemployer consulting and the Chair of Segal’s multiemployer leadership group and is responsible for leading Segal’s consultants who work with multiemployer plans. David has more than 28 years of experience working with plan sponsors on a wide range of employee benefit services, including benefit strategies, funding and plan management.

Brian Bruzda
Alan Biller & Associates

Brian is a managing senior consultant at Alan Biller & Associates. He is expertly versed in all facets pertaining to the development and ongoing maintenance of institutional investment programs. Brian has served predominantly Taft-Hartley plan sponsors as lead consultant to defined benefit, defined contribution, welfare and VEBA funds both regionally and nationally.

John Marco
Segal Marco Advisors

John is a senior vice president at Segal Marco Advisors. He has more than 12 years of investment consulting experience. He consults to defined benefit, defined contribution, and health & welfare plans. John also leads Segal Marco Advisors’ western U.S. team. He started his career at the Marco Consulting Group as an investment manager analyst where he developed expertise in both traditional and alternative asset classes.

Steve McCourt
Meketa Investment Group

Steve is managing principal of Meketa Investment Group. He serves as lead consultant for several institutional funds with public, Taft-Hartley, endowment, non-profit and corporate plan sponsors. He also leads the firm’s Global Macroeconomic Working Group. He sits on the steering committee of the University of California, San Diego Economics Roundtable.

Tim McCusker
NEPC

Tim is chief investment officer at NEPC, where he oversees investment research and strategy development. In 2015, he topped CIO magazine’s rankings of the world’s most influential investment consultants, and in 2016 he was listed again by the magazine as one of the world’s most influential investment consultants. Tim earned his B.A. in mathematics from Colgate University.

Annie Taylor
Verus

Annie is a managing director and senior consultant with Verus. She is Taft-Hartley specialist with more than 18 years of experience consulting to defined-benefit, defined-contribution and health & welfare trust funds in both non-discretionary and OCIO roles. A shareholder of the firm since 2009, Annie is a member of the management committee and the OCIO investment committee. She chairs Verus’ Taft-Hartley sector team and assists with business development.