< The 2014 Pension 40: The Battle Is On
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Randy DeFrehn
Executive Director
National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans
Last year: 10
Last year Randy DeFrehn, executive director of the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans, hoped that the organization’s newly formed Retirement Security Review Commission, given the task of making recommendations to aid ailing multiemployer (also known as Taft-Hartley) plans, would drive new legislation. The commission’s report, “Solutions Not Bailouts,” created by a coalition of more than 40 multiemployer stakeholders, recommended giving plan trustees the power to partly suspend retiree benefits to shore up failing plans for some of the “multi” universe’s 10.4 million members. Although DeFrehn, 62, has been able to garner support from some union officials, others, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, as well as organizations like AARP are vehemently opposed to overriding ERISA’s longtime “anticutback” rule. DeFrehn believes it’s better to give all retirees in a plan some benefits rather than draining a dying pension fund until no assets remain. He has the support of John Kline, the Minnesota Republican who chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. “We’re optimistic it will get done in the lame-duck session,” says DeFrehn. A former benefits consultant at Taft-Hartley specialty shop Segal Co., he started in the labor movement at age 23, running a coal miners’ office, and joined the NCCMP in 2001.
The 2014 Pension 40
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Bruce Rauner Illinois | John and Laura Arnold Laura and John Arnold Foundation | Randi Weingarten American Federation of Teachers | Rahm Emanuel Chicago | David Boies Boies, Schiller & Flexner |
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Randy DeFrehn National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans | Damon Silvers AFL-CIO | Laurence Fink BlackRock | Chris Christie New Jersey | Robin Diamonte United Technologies Corp. |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| Ted Eliopoulos California Public Employees’ Retirement System | John Kline Minnesota | J. Mark Iwry U.S. Treasury Department | Gina Raimondo Rhode Island | Phyllis Borzi U.S. Labor Department |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| Orrin Hatch Utah | Abigail Johnson Fidelity Investments | Ted Wheeler Oregon | Caitlin Long Morgan Stanley | James Hoffa International Brotherhood of Teamsters |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| Amy Kessler Prudential Financial | Alejandro García Padilla Puerto Rico | Christopher Klein U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Caifornia | Steven Rhodes Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan | Kevin de León California |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| David Draine Pew Charitable Trusts | Jordan Marks National Public Pension Coalition | Sam Liccardo California | Joshua Rauh Stanford Graduate School of Business | Karen Ferguson and Karen Friedman Pension Rights Center |
| 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 |
| Timothy Blake Moody’s Investors Service | Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Center for Retirement Initiatives, Georgetown University | Edward (Ted) Siedle Benchmark Financial Services | Daniel Loeb Third Point | Judy Mares Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Labor Department |
| 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 |
| Andrew Biggs American Enterprise Institute | Andy Stern Columbia University | Kenneth Mehlman KKR & Co. | Teresa Ghilarducci New School for Social Research | A. Melissa Moye U.S. Treasury Department |
