Full Content of "Crisis at PERS" Section

By Alan Stonewall, FSPA, EA, MAAA

This analysis of Oregon PERS is presented with the hope that it may serve as a basis for finding a solution to the problems facing PERS. It is the author's opinion based on hundreds of hours of research into PERS that without direct action, soon, the financial burden of PERS will reach well beyond anyone's current expectations. It is also the author's opinion that there are fair and common sense remedies ready and waiting for implementation.

The surging stock market returns of the 1990's masked some fundamental design flaws in PERS and imprudent, unsustainable policy decisions of the PERS Board that are now coming to light. Unless action is taken, the cost to the State, and cities, counties and other political subdivisions whose employees are covered by PERS will increase more than anyone is expecting.

During the 1990's the PERS Board approved crediting recommendations that increased the majority of employee accounts by an average of 14.7%. The law requires only that the accounts be credited with at least 8%. This was an imprudent, short-sighted policy that did not take into account that the stock market goes down as well as up. Now, in order to pay the guaranteed 8% return when the market is dropping, PERS will have to ask for higher contributions to make up the shortfall. More tax dollars will be demanded of Oregon tax payers to pay for the Board's shortsightedness.

One result of the PERS Board's crediting practice is that by 2000, the average monthly pension for a retiree with 30 years of service has increased to106% of his or her highest three-year average wage. The average retirement age has decreased to age 53. This is an unreasonably high amount compared to 1) what older PERS retirees are receiving, 2) compared to what financial experts consider needed to maintain the workers same standard of living, and 3) compared to what other public and private retirement systems provide.

A second result of the PERS Board's crediting practice is that it has done nothing for PERS retirees from years past. There are now two classes of PERS retirees: those who retired before the imprudent crediting practices took hold and have modest pensions, and current "Tier I" employees who have been enriched by their union and the PERS Board at the expense of all others.

In spite of the fact that PERS enjoyed tremendous investment returns during the 1990's, by the end of 2001, it was under funded by $8.6 billion. Since then, assets have declined due to stock market losses, but liabilities continue to grow because the employee accounts are guaranteed to grow at 8% per year regardless of market performance. Because no other state provides the kind of market rate guarantee that Oregon does, most other state retirement systems are overfunded.

The Oregon Legislature has failed to provide adequate oversight of PERS. The public employee unions have sought and continue to seek ever higher pensions for their "Tier I" workers while older PERS retirees struggle with more modest pensions. PERS itself struggles to manage a large public retirement system without adequate resources.

This paper offers four "necessary" recommendations for bringing fairness and common sense back to PERS that should be acceptable to all interested parties. It presents three additional recommendations that would further improve the fairness and long-term stability of PERS for active and retired members of PERS.

How PERS got to where it is today is an all-too-familiar tale of financial complexities, mismanagement, greed, excuses, and lack of oversight. What distinguishes the perils of PERS from those of Enron, WorldCom, and other financial failures is that PERS has not and will not fail. All Oregon taxpayers have guaranteed PERS' future. Either taxes will increase and/or public services will be cut if changes are not made to PERS, but no PERS retiree or employee looking to retire should worry about his or her pension. It will be there.

All the elements of a good and fair retirement system for employees and employers have long been a part of PERS. But PERS is facing some fundamental problems. And, while no one with an honest heart can say that PERS as it is operating today does not need fixing – in a hurry – PERS does not need a complete overhaul. It simply needs to be allowed to get back to its most basic mission: to provide adequate, reliable retirement income to the employees of the State of Oregon, and all the other political subdivisions that count on PERS for their employees' financial security.

Let's start with a few important facts.

PERS has approximately 290,000 active and retired members representing the current and past workforces of the State of Oregon, the State System of Higher Education, and 857 Oregon cities, counties and other political subdivisions. For this reason alone, the success of PERS is critical to the success of Oregon.

PERS is big. At the start of this year, PERS had nearly $40 billion in assets. The money in PERS can only be used to provide benefits to workers. The money no longer belongs to the State or any of the other political subdivisions. It is not controlled by the legislature or the taxpayers. It is held in a trust fund to be used for the exclusive benefit of the workers it covers.

Many PERS retirees receive modest pensions. The longer a worker is covered by PERS (the longer the worker works for the state, city, county, etc.) the bigger is his or her monthly retirement check. An employee who retires with 30 years of credited service will get a monthly retirement check at age 58 of no less than 50% of his or her highest three-year average wages. The check will increase every year by no less than 2%. For police and fire employees the minimum pension is no less than 60% of highest wages at age 50.

Many current retirees are retiring with monthly pensions bigger than their last paycheck. This is happening more and more often at younger and younger retirement ages. Following are average retirement ages, and average replacement values, since 1988:

1988: age 57, 61.8%

1989: age 57, 62.2%

1990: age 56, 63.5%

1991: age 55, 63.3%

1992: age 55, 68.7%

1993: age 55, 70.3%

1994: age 55, 71.1%

1995: age 55, 71.4%

1996: age 55, 75.5%

1997: age 55, 89.0%

1998: age 54, 95.8%

1999: age 53, 100.0%

2000: age 53, 106.0%

Keep in mind that this chart shows averages. In other words, about half the retirees retire on more than what the chart shows, about half retire on less. Stating the obvious, about half of the age 53 retirees retire on more than 106% of their highest three-year average wages.

These large monthly pensions are not available to all PERS retirees. Those workers who retired in the 80's and earlier are probably receiving checks closer to the standard pension of 50% (or less if they retired with less than 30 years of credited service). Fully one-third of the current PERS workers are not eligible for the large pensions. These are called Tier II employees. Like the Tier I employees they will never get less than the standard 50% pension, but unlike the Tier I employees, Tier II employees are not eligible for the parts of PERS that produce the really big monthly retirement checks.

So, what we have in PERS today are three classes of members:

Older retirees who are receiving monthly pension checks based on the standard formula.

Tier I workers and recent retirees who have retired or expect to retire in their mid-50's with retirement income greater than anything they earned while they were working. And, don't forget, they will, when they reach the age when most Americans retire, also get their social security benefits in addition to their PERS pensions.

Tier II workers – basically anyone who joined PERS on or after January 1, 1996 – who expect to get no less than the standard pension, but probably nothing close to the what the Tier I retiree will get.

The strong accusation made earlier that PERS got into the mess it finds itself in today through a combination of financial complexities, mismanagement, greed, excuses, and lack of oversight was not made lightly. However, those are not inappropriate words to describe what has happened to PERS over the years. Here are some reasons why those words were chosen.

Mismanagement. Accusing the PERS Board of mismanagement is discomforting, especially because it involves what could be considered second guessing with the benefit of hindsight. However, there is no more apt description for their actions during the 1990's.

Since 1983, the funding of PERS has been based on the assumption that over the long term, it will earn an average annual return on its investments of 8%. No one assumes it will earn exactly 8% every year. In some years more than 8% will be earned and in some years less will be earned. In some years, the stock market goes up and in some years, the stock market goes down. Everyone knows that – except possibly the PERS Board.

Look at the chart below. It compares the actual rate of return earned by PERS to the rate of return credited to Tier I employees. Each year the PERS Board met to decide how much to credit to Tier I employees. The law says the PERS Board must credit at least 8%, in good years and in bad years. What the PERS Board did was credit amounts to PERS Tier I employees as though there would never be any bad years.

Here, for years since 1990, are PERS actual earnings, and ernings credited to PERS accounts:

1990: (1.53%) actual, 8.0% credited

1991: 22.45% actual, 15.0% credited

1992: 6.94% actual, 8.0% credited

1993: 15.04% actual, 12.0% credited

1994: 2.16% actual, 8.0% credited

1995: 20.78% actual, 12.5% credited

1996: 24.42% actual, 21.0% credited

1997: 20.42% actual, 18.7% credited

1998: 15.63% actual, 14.1% credited

1999: 24.89% actual, 20.0% credited

2000: 0.63% actual, 8.0% credited

2001: (7.17%) actual, 8.0% credited

For whatever reason – bad advice, ignorance of the consequences, political pressures – the Board failed to act like a prudent investor who plans for the inevitability of both good years and bad years that produce an average rate of return of 8%. Using the fable of the grasshopper and the ants , the PERS Board chose to follow the short-sided view of the grasshopper. As a result, in two short years, PERS has gone from being well funded to having an $8.6 billion shortfall. Would anyone like to guess where the shortfall will be at the end of 2002 unless there is a miraculous stock market recovery by year end?

Financial complexities. The actuary for PERS, one of the nation's leading pension actuaries for public employers, has on many occasions described Oregon PERS as unique in the world. There is no other plan that has as many inter-related and sometimes competing features as does Oregon PERS.

PERS has three benefit formulas. Most plans have one. PERS has many "buckets" of money that are allocated interest, charged with expenses, and used for various purposes. Some buckets are used to help pay for the plan. Some of the buckets add to the expense of the plan. There is little statutory guidance as to how interest and expenses are to be allocated to these competing buckets, yet the amount of money moving among the buckets is in the billions of dollars. PERS staff can and have made recommendations for administrative and accounting process changes that moves many, many millions ($billions?) among these buckets without oversight.

Understanding the intricacies of PERS is like squeezing a partially filled balloon. Every time you grasp it, new bulges appear between your fingers. Move your fingers, and new bulges appear. Even PERS and its advisors are caught off guard. For example, although the money match benefit formula was added in the early 1980's, PERS and its advisors acknowledged that its impact on the system was not well understood until 1997. Today, almost all new retirees retire under the money match formula and it is the money match formula which is at the root of many of PERS' financial problems.

Greed. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins. Most people are offended if they are called greedy. So, the words were chosen carefully when it was stated earlier in this paper that some of the leaders of the public employee unions and some of their advisors have acted irresponsibly greedy on behalf of some, but not all of their members.

The unions have consistently opposed setting aside some of the investment income earned in high income years for the inevitable low investment income years such as PERS is experiencing now. The unions have argued that there is no reason to set money aside for a rainy day. Some of the individuals who have made this cry know full well that the result of such action will be to use tax dollars to increase pensions for some PERS employees to ridiculously high levels. Recently, the union has written in support of a proposed administrative change to PERS' procedures that will increase Tier I benefits at a time when PERS has an $8.6 billion shortfall that is getting worse.

I have not once heard a spokesperson for the union say maybe for at least some of its membership, PERS is at least a little out of whack; maybe we should look at ways to make it more equitable for all PERS employees. The only thing I have heard the union leaders and spokespersons ask for is more.

Lack of Oversight. Ultimately, PERS operates, or at least is supposed to operate, according to the laws passed by the Legislature. PERS has three benefit formulas because the Legislature made them law. The PERS Board has discretionary control over billions of dollars without effective oversight because that is how the Legislature wrote the law. Every legislative session PERS, and the unions and others come to the Legislature with requests to make changes to PERS. Every year PERS presents to the Board a financial report, including how much it intends to credit to Tier I employees.

During the 1990's the PERS Board approved crediting recommendations that increased Tier I accounts by an average of 14.7%. By law, the accounts only needed to be credited with 8%. The excess crediting during the 1990's amounted to over $3.0 billion dollars. Stated another way, the PERS Board unilaterally decided to spend over $3.0 billion of tax-generated funds to increase pensions of active PERS members so that on average, 30-year career employees could retire at age 53 with a monthly retirement check equal to 106% of their highest three years of wages. The PERS Board could have decided to use all or a portion of the excess investment gain to reduce the cost of the plan for the employers, thereby freeing up equivalent amounts of tax dollars for the State, cities, counties and other political subdivisions to use for other public good.

Are you aware that the PERS Board has discretionary control over the spending of tax dollars? Did the Legislature even consider that it has a responsibility to question the crediting decisions of the PERS Board, or did the Legislature consider the crediting decisions to be solely within the discretion of the Board? Did anyone in the Legislature even know what the average PERS pension was?

Of greater concern is the autonomy granted to the Board. Because of the unique features of Oregon PERS in combination with the autonomy granted it by law, the Board has the ability to increase PERS benefits without a vote of the legislature. And just as the Legislature may be guilty of approving actions of the Board within its control without really understanding the consequences, the Board may be guilty of approving recommendations of PERS staff without really understanding the consequences. Consider the following.

Until this year, PERS' administrative rules provided that monies set aside in what is called the gain/loss reserve would be used to make up investment shortfalls in bad years for all Tier I accounts. There are both employee and employer Tier I accounts. This year PERS staff proposed "decoupling" the employer accounts from gain/loss reserve coverage. The unions wrote in support of the proposed administrative change. The reasons put forth for the change are simplification and good actuarial practice. The practical effect of the change will be to increase benefits to Tier I employees retiring under the money match formula.

PERS staff knows the proposed decoupling will increase Tier I benefits and thus the cost of PERS to taxpayers. The unions know what the result will be. Does the PERS Board? Has anyone done a cost estimate? If so, has the cost been made known to the employers and the taxpayers who have to pay for it?

Excuses. Everyone involved with PERS has offered an excuse for the current predicament PERS finds itself in. Here are the players and the excuses.

1. PERS. "We don't set policy. We just do what we are told." For many, many years the PERS Handbook had prominently displayed the following mission statement: To provide long service PERS retirees with a retirement replacement income, including social security of 75% to 85% of wages. When it became apparent that pensions were way, way in excess of the stated goal (some time in the mid-1990's) PERS simply removed the goal from sight rather than address the issue or suggest to others that they address the issue.

Moreover, PERS has made administrative decisions that impact how millions of taxpayer dollars get used.

2. PERS Board. "It is our fiduciary duty to do everything we can to benefit the employees covered by PERS." The Board has used this excuse to credit unsustainable rates to Tier I employees. The result is an $8.6 billion boondoggle that is getting worse. And PERS' investment performance wasn't that bad. It about broke even in 2000 and lost about 8% in 2001. I am deeply concerned about what the red ink will look like at the end of 2002 unless the stock market recovers dramatically in the second half of the year. With all the good investment results PERS experienced in the 1990's, PERS should be, like almost all other state plans are, well funded. The Board's crediting policy simply defies common sense.

3. The Unions. "You can't look just at the pension benefits. You have to look at the whole compensation package to evaluate whether someone's total compensation including the pension is reasonable. Government salaries are low, so it is okay to have pensions that are excessive." Bunk. There is no defense for a system that retires an average career employee at 106% of wages at age 53. In 1994 the unions successfully used the total compensation argument to confuse and obfuscate the review of PERS with unending analyses until everyone just gave up.

If government salaries are so low, why are there so many applicants for every new position that opens up? If government salaries are so low, why isn't the union doing more to help Tier II employees? Are Oregon's governmental salaries significantly less than other states? We know how our pension system stacks up: it's the best.

"You can't change PERS. Our employees have a contractual right to their promised pensions." Oregon law does provide some contractual rights protection to governmental workers that private sector workers do not enjoy. But by the union's definition of contractual rights, if a state worker was once promised the right to buy a loaf of bread at 1978 prices, that worker is forever entitled to buy bread at 1978 prices, even in 2002 and beyond.

2. PERS Board. "It is our fiduciary duty to do everything we can to benefit the employees covered by PERS." The Board has used this excuse to credit unsustainable rates to Tier I employees. The result is an $8.6 billion boondoggle that is getting worse. And PERS' investment performance wasn't that bad. It about broke even in 2000 and lost about 8% in 2001. I am deeply concerned about what the red ink will look like at the end of 2002 unless the stock market recovers dramatically in the second half of the year. With all the good investment results PERS experienced in the 1990's, PERS should be, like almost all other state plans are, well funded. The Board's crediting policy simply defies common sense.

If you think this is an exaggeration, take a look at the union's position on the issue of using current mortality rates to convert money match accounts to monthly pensions. The union claims that even though everyone agrees retired workers are living longer now than they were when the 1978 conversion tables were developed, PERS must continue to pay its retirees based on out-of-date life expectancies. There is neither fairness nor common sense to this position.

4. The Legislature. "Gee, this is a surprise. Let's appoint a task force or two to look into the matter." The Legislature did the same thing in 1994. The result was the creation of the Tier II classification for PERS. Tier I remains out of control. To be certain, there are political realities that have to be dealt with, but PERS and the Legislature no longer have the luxury of a long bull market run to cover up the fundamental problems inherent in the present structure of PERS.

The basic remedies for bringing fairness and common sense to PERS that were proposed in 1994, are the same today. So, too, are the road blocks and naysayers the same. It remains to be seen if the Legislature and the Governor's office will have the wherewithal to act this time.

5. The Governor. "Not my problem." Translated, this means I am not going to buck the employee unions.

Summary. As stated earlier, during the 1990's the PERS Board acted irresponsibly in crediting substantially more to Tier I accounts than the system could possibly support long-term, about $3 billion more than the law requires. This has resulted in average pensions for one segment of the PERS workforce of 106% of the employee's highest three-year average wages while retired workers pensions remain modest.

PERS is a system out of control. It is a system without good oversight. It provides reasonable benefits to many, but obscenely high benefits to others. It has grown to be so complex that there are not a handful of people outside PERS, and probably only a handful of people inside PERS who really understand how it works. Costs to the taxpayers of the State, and the cities, counties and other political subdivisions who support PERS are, in my opinion likely to increase substantially.

If PERS is to regain its financial integrity and develop a long-term plan for providing fair, adequate, and reasonable pensions for its members, here is what, at a minimum, must be done.

1. Change the make up of the PERS Board. Separate the PERS Board into two distinct boards. The PERS Financial Board would be charged with the fiduciary responsibility to implement the (yet-to-be developed) funding policy for PERS established by the Legislature.

The PERS Administrative Board would be charged with the fiduciary responsibility to oversee the day-to-day operations of PERS. It would handle all matters not specifically assigned to the Financial Board. The focus of the Financial Board would be the long-term financial integrity of PERS. The focus of the Administrative Board would be payment of fair and equitable benefits to the employees covered by PERS.

The Financial Board should include some PERS beneficiaries, but the majority of members of the Financial Board should have no personal interest in PERS. The Administrative Board should include some members who are not PERS beneficiaries, but the majority of the members of the Administrative Board should have a beneficial interest in PERS. The members of both boards should be appointed by the Legislature and should serve no more than two three-year terms.

2. Set the Tier I crediting rate at 8%. Period. No exception. The Oregon Revised Statutes actually state that the crediting rate for every year will be no less than the assumed rate of interest used by the PERS' actuary. Currently that is 8%. Think about that for a minute. What kind of guaranteed interest rate can you find that is backed by the full faith of a government for the rest of your working career that guarantees both interest and stock market gains? An 8% guarantee is more than you will find anywhere else in the U.S.

It is, in effect, a guarantee of stock market returns, not just interest. Who else do you know who made money on Enron stock last year? Tier I employees in PERS did because they shared in the gain when the value of Enron stock rose from the $20 per share price range to more than $90. But when the stock went down, the value in their accounts attributable to the increase in value of the Enron stock kept going up at no less than 8% a year. It will keep increasing next year and years to come even after there is no Enron! And this year they will make money on the value of their WorldCom stock!

Who else do you know but Tier I employees in PERS who can watch the stock market plummet this summer and smile because they know their accounts will grow at 8% even though their money is in the stock market? And, who do you think will pay for the shortfall between the billions of dollars PERS may lose in the stock market this year and the more than guaranteed $1 billion investment credit Tier I employees will receive?

It makes no sense to guarantee stock market returns. It makes less sense to guarantee 12% and 13% rates of return for the working lifetime of some PERS members, which is what the PERS Board has effectively done by its imprudent actions in the bull markets of the 1990's. It makes even less sense to do so without setting aside money for the inevitable downs of the stock market that accompany the highs.

While it makes the most sense to set the interest guarantee to long-term government bond rates (about 5% or so), setting the guarantee at 8% does not take away any promise from current PERS members. They will continue to be the only public retirement system members in the U.S. who enjoy a stock market rate guarantee rather than a true interest rate guarantee.

For those PERS members who want to participate in the ups and downs of the market like 401(k) plan participants, PERS already has in place the variable account option, an option without a guarantee. PERS members in the variable account option reap the rewards of good stock market performance by the Oregon Investment Council, but also bear the risk when the market does not do well.

3. Provide informed Legislative oversight. The State Legislature should establish a permanent oversight committee supported by knowledgeable staff who are not beneficiaries of PERS. Someone outside of the PERS fraternity needs to be a watch dog. This job can be made more manageable if other changes are made to simplify PERS, but whether or not simplification is accomplished, it is not acceptable for the Legislature to be as ignorant of PERS as it has been. The Legislature needs to take accountability for active oversight and in turn hold PERS accountable for its actions.

4. Provide PERS will adequate resources. To say that PERS is working with antiquated computer systems and related procedures is an understatement. An inadequate infrastructure is not an excuse for failing to comply with the laws or otherwise exercise poor judgment, but PERS staff is working with a system that cannot be sustained for the long term. If PERS is going to move forward, it should be given the resources to do so effectively.

I believe each of the foregoing changes could be implemented with minimal disruption to the system, and without violating even the most expansive definition of contractual rights. I am sure not every interested party agrees with me.

If all parties involved were to agree to work within a framework that included an even narrower interpretation of contractual rights, here are further changes that should be implemented.

5. Eliminate the money match benefit formula on a prospective basis. All employees would be eligible to retire under what I referred to as the standard pension formula. PERS calls it the full formula. It is a guaranteed pension of 1.67% of an employee's highest three years of wages for each year of credited service. A 30-year retiree would retire under this formula with a 50% pension. When social security is added, the retiree would expect to receive a retirement income equal to – surprise – about 75% to 85% of his or her pre-retirement wages. Sound familiar?

6. Eliminate the Tiers I and II. There would no longer need to be different classes of PERS members. Everyone would be eligible for the same reasonable and adequate pensions. Eliminating the money match formula would have the additional positive affect of greatly simplifying the system.

If all parties involved were interested in making PERS more equitable between current and already retired members, I would add the following seventh recommendation.

7. Consider a cost neutral change that simultaneously increases the retirement age for full benefits to age 59 or so in exchange for a 2 ½% or 3% annual COLA. Americans are on average living longer now than we did when the retirement age for full benefits was pegged to 58. PERS could take the money it would save by increasing the retirement age and use it to provide higher cost of living adjustments that will help the more than 80,000 retired PERS members.

When The Oregonian published its in-depth articles about the problems with PERS in early June, and Dave Reinhard wrote a follow up editorial, at least two of the responses from the public were 100% predictable. One was also 100% correct and the other 100% wrong.

The 100% correct response came from a retired PERS member who appropriately asked "What excessive pensions? I barely get by on my pension. I worked hard. I deserve what I get." To that gentleman, I say I whole heartedly agree. A great many retirees are in you position. The longer ago you retired, the more likely that is to be the case. You have every right to be upset. You were not included in the elite group. I suggest that your follow up question should be "Why? Why are such high pensions being lavished on one group of PERS members at the expense of others?"

The 100% wrong response came from one of the union spokespersons. She suggested that there is fundamentally nothing wrong with PERS. "We should not act rashly. Things will work themselves out." Things will not work themselves out. The best case scenario is that PERS will only get a little bit more expensive than it is now and pensions for the elite Tier I group will get only a little bit more unreasonable. The odds for the best case scenario are slim and less than slim.

The worst case scenario is that cities and counties will have ever increasing payroll costs due to ever increasing PERS costs due to ever increasing PERS Tier I benefits. The disparity between the retirement income provided to Tier I and Tier II workers will become divisive. Oregon cities and counties will be forced to make unpleasant cuts elsewhere in their budgets that affect the livability of all Oregonians. In my opinion as an actuary and someone who has spent hundreds of hours looking into PERS, the worst case scenario is waiting just around the corner unless all interested parties steps forward to make the necessary changes to bring fairness and common sense back to PERS.

Educational Background

BS in mathematics, Oregon State, 1969

MBA in finance, University of Florida, 1971

Actuarial Credentials

Pension actuary since 1969

Fellow, American Society of Pension Actuaries

Member, American Academy of Actuaries

Enrolled Actuary (No. 835) with the U.S. Depts of Labor and Treasury

Past President, American Society of Pension Actuaries

Immediate Past Chairperson, and current board member, Actuarial Standards Board

(The Actuarial Standards Board sets the standards of practice for all U.S. actuaries.)

Chairperson, Actuarial Education and Research Foundation

Board member, The Actuarial Foundation

Oregon PERS Experience

1994 Chaired the Citizen's Task Force to the House Task Force on PERS – Headed a panel of experts who looked into Oregon PERS to compare it to other public employee retirement systems as well as private pension plans in Oregon. Information was gathered from many sources, a series of open meetings was held at which PERS, PERS advisors, union representatives and others had input. After months of analysis, a report and recommendation were presented to the Legislature.

2001 Expert witness for the City of Eugene and others in a law suit against PERS – In this capacity spent hundreds of hours reviewing and analyzing thousands pages of documents related to PERS. Developed an understanding of the internal intricacies of PERS.

Business Experience

Current: Consulting actuary with Independent Actuaries, Inc, Beaverton, Oregon

1994- 2001: Director, Employee Benefits with Deloitte & Touche, Portland, Oregon

1979-1994: Actuary (and founder) Stonewall Pension Service, Inc. Portland, Oregon, and its successor, SPS Consulting

1969-1979: Worked for Travelers Insurance Company and three small actuarial consulting firms