Presented in alphabetical order.
Ron Auer
Executive Director, CORPaTH
Ron has extensive experience in investment management, strategy development, communications, marketing and client service. Previously, he was president and CEO of Ten Asset Management, Inc., a quantitatively-focused investment management firm headquartered in San Diego, which managed U.S. equity portfolios for institutional clients.
Dave Blitzstein
PBGC Advisory Committee
Dave recently retired as special assistant for multiemployer plans for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), where he served as a trustee on Taft-Hartley pension funds and health funds representing half a million participants. In 2011, Dave was appointed by President Obama to the Advisory Committee of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) for a three-year term.
Tom Croft
Heartland Strategies
Tom is an authority on innovative jobs policies and responsible capital strategies to revitalize the economy. He is the author of Up from Wall Street: The Responsible Investment Alternative (Cosimo, 2009). Tom is also the managing director of Heartland Capital Strategies (HCS), a responsible pension investment network in the United States and Canada. He oversees four offices in Pennsylvania as the executive director of the Steel Valley Authority (SVA).
Cathie Eitelberg
The Segal Company
Cathie is a senior vice president in The Segal Company’s Washington, D.C. office. She has more than 35 years of public policy experience with a focus on employee benefits and public finance. She is the firm’s national director of the public sector market and a member of its senior management team. Prior to joining Segal, Cathie was the Government Finance Officers Association’s first director and founder of its Pension and Benefits Center.
John Elliot
NEPC
John is a partner at NEPC. He is a highly-respected and popular leader in the defined-benefits pension world. Since joining NEPC in 2003, he has spoken at many national conferences on the subject of Taft-Hartley plans. Prior to joining NEPC, he was the western regional director for the Marco Consulting Group from 1999 to 2003, where he succeeded in developing a west coast presence in the Taft-Hartley market for the firm.
Gregg Hymowitz
EnTrust Capital
Gregg is the founder and managing partner of EnTrust Capital, as well as chair of EnTrust’s Investment Committee and a member of EnTrust Securities LLC. Prior to founding EnTrust Capital, Gregg was a vice president at Goldman, Sachs & Co., which he joined in 1992. Gregg graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School with a juris doctorate in 1990.
Jacques Loveall
UFCW 8-Golden State
Jacques is president of the 35,000-member union UFCW 8-Golden State and is a vice president of the 1.3 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. He is chairman of Group Administration LLC. He is also chairman of the UFCW Northern California Pension Fund and its Investment and Funding Committee, as well as the UFCW and Employers Benefit Trust. He is a master trustee of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.
Thomas J. Mackell, Jr., Ed.D.
Intl. Longshoremen’s Assoc., AFL-CIO
Tom is senior consultant to the International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO, for political, legislative and public affairs. He has had a life-long career in the management, administration and investment management of employee benefit funds in the financial services and asset management industry. He was a White House appointee to the ERISA Advisory Council to the Secretary of Labor from 1997 through 1999.
Bill McDonough
UFCW International Union
Bill is the executive vice president and director of the UFCW Collective Bargaining Department. He established a multi-layered, union-wide UFCW core industry organizing program to build UFCW density and member power at the bargaining table. His responsibilities include overseeing and directing collective bargaining policies and strategies.
Rob McGarrah
Sustainability Issues, AFL-CIO Office of Investment
Rob is an attorney for the AFL-CIO’s Office of Investment, which leads the AFL-CIO’s capital stewardship efforts to protect $4 trillion in retirement and health security funds for working families across America. He leads shareholder efforts to promote human rights, environmental responsibility and health reform at Fortune 100 companies and serves on the boards of the Global Reporting Initiative and the RAND Institute for Civil Justice.
Peter Palandjian
Intercontinental Real Estate
Peter is chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Real Estate. He oversees the affiliated operating companies, with primary responsibility for investment strategy and institutional relationships. Founded more than 50 years ago, Intercontinental is an SEC-registered investment advisor and fully integrated real estate services firm with offices in Boston, New York, Orlando, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles.
Max Patterson
TexPERS
Max is the executive director of the Texas Association of Public Employees Retirement Systems (TexPERS), a statewide association organized in 1989 to provide educational programs for more than 80 Texas retirement systems. These systems serve more than 400,000 active and retired members with more than $45 billion in assets. Max serves as the governor’s appointee to the Texas Emergency Services Retirement Board.
Marc Perrone
UFCW International Union
Marc was elected international secretary-treasurer of the 1.3 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union in 2004. In this capacity, his primary responsibility is monitoring the finances of the International Union. He is also responsible for stewardship of the pension funds that will enable UFCW members to live out their retirement years in security and with dignity.
Darren Robbins
Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd
Darren is a founding partner of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd and has extensive experience in federal and state securities class action litigation. He received the California Lawyer Attorney of the Year Award in 2004 for his role as lead counsel in In re Hanover Compressor Sec. Litig., which resulted in an $85-million recovery for shareholders and landmark corporate governance reforms.
Steve Stemerman
Davis Cowell & Bowe, McCracken, Stemerman & Holsberry
Steve has been a member of the California and the Nevada bar. He represents labor unions and Taft-Hartley pension and health funds in the Southwest, East and West Coasts, as well as in Hawaii. In addition, he has been involved in some of the largest employment class-action cases in the country as well as a mediator in assisting the settlement of major class- action cases over the past 20 years.
Joe Sweeney
The Segal Company
Joe joined The Segal Company in 1994. Since then, he has been actively involved in a variety of benefit strategy projects with a focus on multi-employer health care and pension projects, including assessment of current benefit programs, development of program strategies, and implementing and developing price and contribution strategies based on clients’ costs and benefit objectives.
Neal Wilkinson
Caisson Advisors
Neal is CEO of Caisson Advisors, LLC and founder and president of OpenField Foundation. In addition to his charitable works through OpenField, he serves on the National Advisory Boards of Good Sports, Inc., The Loveall Foundation for Children and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Neal is a graduate of James Madison University in Virginia and a 1988 NFL Draft pick as a Tight End for the Green Bay Packers.
Guilherme R. Valle
ABS Investment Advisors
Guilherme is a co-founder, principal and managing member of ABS, an independent fund of funds manager currently allocating more than $4 billion to outside managers, mainly in the equity long/short space. He focuses his research primarily on emerging markets. Approximately 20 percent of the firm’s total assets are allocated to emerging-markets managers.