Chairperson's Corner
By Hal Tepfer
Retirement Section News, January 2023
Hello, Retirement Section Council members (and others who are reading this).
I am honored and humbled to have been chosen to be the chair of the Retirement Section Council for the 2022–2023 year, and I want to thank you for this opportunity.
My predecessors in this role have said that the only people who keenly read the “Chairperson’s Corner” are future chairpersons who are writing their articles. So, a special “hi” to you, our chairperson of the future!
I want to thank Todd Tauzer, our outgoing chair, for his leadership over the last year, Grace Barbieri for her work on the council for the last four (!) years (including serving as chair before Todd), and Lisa Ullman for her work with the council during her term. I appreciate the work these three now-former council members have done, and I’ll miss seeing them at our council meetings.
I’m happy that Jamie Sloat (our vice chair), Greg Hawes, and David Rosenblum will continue on the Retirement Section Council. And I welcome our new members: Jeff Passmore, Alicia Traviss, and Jeff Williams. I think we’re going to do remarkable things together!
The upcoming year promises to be an interesting one for our council. Lee Gold and his team have recently completed a “conjoint analysis” of retirement needs (yes, I had to look up “conjoint” when Lee first began work on this project). The study asked people around the country to give their opinion about various aspects of retirement plans, the results of which were discussed at the ImpACT 2022 meeting. I hope you are looking forward to additional information about the study, the results of the study, and the implication of those results in the coming months as much as I am. As the saying goes: “watch this space” for more about the work that Lee and his team have done.
Rob Reiskytl’s Defined Contribution team is well-positioned to help our members more deeply understand the importance of defined contribution concepts in developing, analyzing, and communicating an overall retirement plan. The work that Rob and his team have been doing over the last two years continues to be insightful, and we can all expect to learn quite a bit from the group. As you know, we’ve incorporated a “Defined Contribution” corner into each of these Retirement Section News issues for the last year and will continue to do so.
I want to take this opportunity to remind you that the Retirement Section is your section. The members of the Retirement Section Council are focused on serving your needs as someone who is interested in and likely practicing in the retirement world. The survey we did earlier this year gave us insights into what you, the members of the Retirement Section, would like the Retirement Section Council to think about, and we are doing that.
But we are always looking for ideas from you about how we can do an even better job for the section. The Retirement Section Council has subgroups that address research, education, and communications, so any thoughts you have about projects or topics that either the Retirement Section Council or one of our subgroups can consider are always welcome.
Finally, I’d like to encourage you to get involved with the Retirement Section Council. At our monthly meetings, we welcome “Friends of the Council” to sit in and hear what we are talking about. The subgroups I mentioned (defined contribution, research, education, and communication) are open to new members. Retirement Section Council members have said that the experience they gain by volunteering has been invaluable. It has allowed each of us to give back to other retirement area members and allowed us to meet other retirement professionals from different organizations and backgrounds.
Join us!
Thank you again for allowing me to lead the Retirement Section Council over the next year.
Your friend,
Hal
Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the newsletter editors, or the respective authors’ employers.
Hal Tepfer, FSA, EA, MAAA, is the director of the Boston University MS in Actuarial Science program. He can be contacted at hal@bu.edu.