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The 2015 Pension 40: Mark Mullet
No. 17 Mark Mullet, State Senator / Washington


It took seven years and a dose of dedication for Mark Mullet to catapult from managing currency options trading at UBS in London to helping lead the U.S. retirement security debate as a Washington state senator. After switching in 2007 from finance to a new career as an owner of Issaquah, Washington’s Zeeks Pizza restaurant and a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop, Mullet sought a retirement plan for his 50 employees. When he discovered the outsize expense of small-business plan offerings for both employer and employees, a public servant was born. Mullet earned a master’s of public affairs in 2008, won a seat in the state senate in November 2012 and introduced his first retirement plan bill with Republican senator Don Benton in January 2014. That bill, which sought an inexpensive solution piggybacking on the Washington State Investment Board’s defined contribution plan for public employees, was quickly shot down by financial services lobbyists. Undaunted, Mullet reintroduced a bill in 2015 that mutual funds and insurers could live with: a voluntary individual retirement account marketplace for employers with more than 100 workers. He was able to negotiate low plan fees of no more than 100 basis points (1 percent). In May, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed the Small Business Retirement Marketplace into law. Now Mullet, who hopes the marketplace will be up and running at the end of 2016, is looking for a million-dollar donation to promote the plan to employers statewide.
![]() 2. John & Laura Arnold Laura and John Arnold Foundation ![]() 3. Chris Christie New Jersey ![]() 4. Randi Weingarten AmericanFederation of Teachers ![]() 5. Phyllis Borzi U.S. Department of Labor |
![]() 6. Kevin de León California ![]() 7. Alejandro García Padilla Commonwealth ofPuerto Rico ![]() 8. Laurence Fink BlackRock ![]() 9. Rahm Emanuel Chicago ![]() 10. Sean McGarvey North AmericanBuilding Trades Unions |
![]() 11. John Kline Minnesota ![]() 12. J. Mark Iwry U.S. Treasury Department ![]() 13. Damon Silvers AFL-CIO ![]() 14. Jeffrey Immelt General Electric Co. ![]() 15. Joshua Gotbaum Brookings Institution |
![]() 16. Robin Diamonte United Technologies Corp. ![]() 17. Mark Mullet Washington ![]() 18. Terry O'Sullivan Laborers' International Union of North America ![]() 19. Raymond Dalio Bridgewater Associates ![]() 20. Ted Wheeler Oregon |
![]() 21. Thomas Nyhan Central States Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund ![]() 22. Karen Ferguson & Karen Friedman Pensions Rights Center ![]() 23. Randy DeFrehn National Coordinating Committee forMultiemployer Plans ![]() 24. Robert O'Keef Motorola Solutions ![]() 25. Caitlin Long Morgan Stanley |
![]() 26. Kenneth Feinberg The Law Offices of Kenneth R. Feinberg ![]() 27. Orrin Hatch Utah ![]() 28. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Center for Retirement Initiatives, Georgetown University ![]() 29. Ian Lanoff Groom Law Group ![]() 30. Joshua Rauh Stanford Graduate School of Business |
![]() 31. Ted Eliopoulos California Public Employees' Retirement System ![]() 32. Edward (Ted) Siedle Benchmark Financial Services ![]() 33. Teresa Ghilarducci New School for Social Research ![]() 34. Denise Nappier Connecticut ![]() 35. W. Thomas Reeder Jr. Pension BenefitGuaranty Corp. |
![]() 36. Hank Kim National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems ![]() 37. Paul Singer Elliott Management Corp. ![]() 38. Bailey Childers National PublicPension Coalition ![]() 39. Amy Kessler Prudential Financial ![]() 40. Judy Mares U.S. Labor Department |