Hello ASEA!

As we make our way through November and into December, this is truly my favorite time of the year. I refer not to Thanksgiving and Christmas/Hannukah, but to 2023 Contribution Estimates Season.

I enjoy being able to provide guidance during this slower time of the year, as opposed to April or September when so many clients are looking for numbers the next day. And once you prepare these estimates, the final data is so much easier to process. Truly a magical time!

Before I start introducing the articles this month, I’d like to make a short story long...(spoiler alert—it ends in giving thanks to ASEA)…

I volunteered for a mentor program with my college years back. Finally—after three years—I just got my first student requesting my (limited) wisdom, which occurred last week.

This soon-to-be-graduating actuarial student had some issues during the pandemic and lost progress in the game of life. He needs a second chance to prove himself, one perhaps not being given to him by the large actuarial consulting firms with which he is trying to secure interviews. 

His question was, “Do we get second chances or a second act in life?” Thus began my glorious (and oft-repeated) tale of going to Las Vegas in August 2010: new to my job, new to ASEA, and never having heard of the ASEA Google Group. And my life changed at the Actuarial Symposium at the Wynn Hotel (what a blast!).

You made me smarter, appreciated my hyper-technical questions, and displayed great collaboration with the interactive nature of the Symposium. Truly thankful in this time of thanks (And I totally believe in that student, by the way—he will do well).

Ok, thank you for the therapy. Let’s read some articles:

Andrew Remo, ARA’s Director of Legislative Affairs, gives us a sneak peek of proposals and legislative projects that the ARA is working on, which you can find here: https://www.asppa-net.org/asea/what%E2%80%99s-tap-next-retirement-plan-policy-bill 

Baowen Zhang, Consulting Actuary at EGPS, provides a spin-off to the Google Group Post, “F-1 Visa Employee with OPT work permit” with a more personal take on being a foreign employee, which you can find here: https://www.asppa-net.org/asea/f2-ea-navigating-us-employment 

All Hail the Chief. Our ASEA President, Clint Blankenship of ShowMe Pension Group, provides a recap of the 2023 ASEA Annual Business Meeting, which you can find here: https://www.asppa-net.org/asea/2023-asea-annual-business-meeting-recap 

Valerie Lopez, Chief Actuary at ASC, lets her personality fly in an entertaining look at the new mortality tables. Can’t imagine a more interesting way to illuminate such a subject than what Valerie put together (great stuff!), which you can find here: https://www.asppa-net.org/asea/water-cooler-conversation-about-mortality-table-updates-featuring-miss-purry 

Allison Wielobob, ARA’s General Counsel, writes about ARA’s input into potential changes/clarifications to annual funding notices. Thankfully we have an organization like the ASEA Government Affairs Committee watching out for us. You can read Allison’s article here: https://www.asppa-net.org/asea/aras-responses-dols-rfi-shaping-retirement-plan-regulations 

John Bury of Bury and Associates presents an interesting conundrum regarding plan termination notices, which you can find here: https://www.asppa-net.org/asea/plan-termination-notices 

That’s quite the action-packed issue! A final thank you to Elizabeth Duda and Joey Santos-Jones for helping deliver a string of strong monthly issues (I had been starting to think we were going to need to call it ASEA Quarterly ??) 

Of course, during the Holidays, we also express sadness regarding those not with us. We lost two winners of the Edward E. Burrows Distinguished Achievement Award in 2023: Cynthia Groszkiewicz and Thomas Finnegan. 

And we think of them….quite often, actually.

Alan