ABGL Attorney Gary A. Thayer becomes the newest member of the ERISA Advisory Council

DOL Appoints to ERISA Advisory Council
Five New Members, Plus Chair, Vice Chair
The Labor Department announced Dec. 21 that it has appointed five new members as well as a new chair and vice chair to the Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans for 2011.
The 15-member council, also known as the ERISA Advisory Council, advises the labor secretary and provides reports on the technical aspects of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
The council’s charter was recently renewed, the department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration announced in a notice published Dec. 21 in the Federal Register (75 Fed. Reg. 80,072).
Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis appointed existing members of the council, Theda R. Haber, a managing director at asset management firm BlackRock, as the new chair, and Mildeen Worrell, former tax counsel to the House Ways and Means Committee, as vice chair.
New Members
Members of the council serve staggered three-year teams, and they represent various pension-related constituencies, with three representatives each of employee organizations, employers, and the general public, and one representative each for the fields of insurance, corporate trust, actuarial counseling, investment counseling, investment management, and accounting.
The five new members are:

• Marilee Lau, representing the accounting field, a member of the Accountants Committee for the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and immediate past chair of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center Executive Committee;
• Gary A. Thayer, representing employee organizations, a counsel to multiemployer employee benefit funds for Archer, Byington, Glennon & Levine LLP, Melville, N.Y.;
• Richard Turner, representing the insurance field, vice president and deputy counsel for the Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co., Houston;
• Karen Barnes, representing employers, managing counsel for McDonald’s Corp., Glen Ellyn, Ill.; and
• Portia Wu, representing the general public, vice president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, Washington, D.C.