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(From the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, February 24, 1997.)
Throughout a long career with the Internal Revenue Service and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Mr. Slate was committed to protecting the pensions of the American worker. Under his leadership, the pension insurance program experienced a dramatic turnaround. In 1996, PBGC reached a milestone sought since its creation in 1974, a financial surplus. The agency had a deficit that had reached a high of nearly $3 billion four years ago. He led the administration's development of the Retirement Protection Act of 1994, landmark legislation giving the agency the tools necessary to address pension underfunding. He brought state of the art technology to the agency's financial programs and systems and the agency was removed from government high risk lists. He strengthened the agency proactive enforcement program that resulted in $15 billion in additional pension funding and protection for more than 1 million workers. He will be sorely missed by his colleagues and many friends.
Martin Slate is the Executive Director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a government corporation that insures pension plans nationwide. Mr. Slate was appointed Executive Director in March 1993.
PBGC administers insurance programs covering 42 million workers in 55,000 pension plans. The Corporation's operations involve annual premium revenues of $1 billion, assets of $10 billion, and benefit payments to 400,000 people in 2,000 failed pension plans. PBGC has a staff of 700 people.
As PBGC Executive Director, Mr. Slate led the Administration's effort in enacting the Retirement Protection Act of 1994, negotiated a $10 billion payment from General Motors to the country's most underfunded pension plan and corrected the agency's long-troubled financial and management systems. The first drop in pension underfunding in more than a decade is in part attributable to the legislative reforms and PBGC's enforcement efforts. During Mr. Slate's tenure, the Corporation's balance sheet has gone from a $2.9 billion deficit to a surplus. Earnings on PBGC's $10 billion investment portfolio have exceeded the earnings of almost all large public pension funds.
Mr. Slate led the Administration's successful opposition to the "pension raid" legislation in the 1996 budget bill. He was one of the principals advancing the President's pension reforms enacted in the 1996 minimum wage bill, interviewing on over 400 radio and television stations.
PBGC was on of the first six federal agencies to receive the Innovations in American Government Award from the John F. Kennedy School for its "Early Warning" compliance program, which added $14 billion to the pensions of one million people. PBGC has received three Vice Presidential Hammer Awards for Excellence in Reinventing Government, for its compliance and its customer service programs, and is one of four agencies to be removed by the General Accounting Office and the Office of Management and Budget from their "high risk" lists. Other recognition includes the Award of Excellence in 1994 from the National Association of Government Communicators for the outstanding federal public communications program and several awards for technological innovation, including the Technology Excellence Award and the Federal Technology Leadership Award.
From 1986 through 1992, Mr. Slate directed the ERISA program at the Internal Revenue Service. He directed tax regulation for one million retirement plans with $2.5 trillion in assets. Mr. Slate oversaw all legal ERISA rulings, as well as enforcement. Mr. Slate initiated the Voluntary Compliance Resolution Program, now a staple in retirement plan practice. In 1991, Mr. Slate received the Commissioner's Award for his work in developing an integrated compliance program. He is the only recipient of the Government's Special Achievement Award for leadership in the pension area.
Before going to the IRS, Mr. Slate was Director of Field Operations for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the top regulatory position in that agency. He was a trial attorney at the EEOC, winning nationwide litigation involving the steel and electronic industries and arguing precedent-setting civil rights cases in the federal appellate courts.
Mr. Slate is a 1967 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College. He received his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1970. He holds a Master of Laws in Taxation from Georgetown Law Center, where he finished first in a class of 208. He was an adjunct professor of taxation at Georgetown from 1988 to 1993.
Mr. Slate is a seasoned public speaker, delivering keynote speeches to such major organizations as the Conference Board, the Tax Section of the American Bar Association and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. He regularly appears on radio and television and has testified twelve times before Congressional committees. His work at the PBGC was the cover story in the November 1995 edition of Government Executive magazine. Mr. Slate has been profiled in Institutional Investor magazine and is listed in Who's Who in America.
Mr. Slate's publications include:
Preferential Relief in Employment Discrimination, 5 Loyola Law Review
315
(1974).
Review of Supreme Court Cases in the Fair Employment Area, 3 Boston
Bar
Journal 118 (1974).
IRS Use of Section 7805(b) Relief in the Employee Plans Area, BNA Tax
Management Portfolio (1989).
Protecting Pensions, 44 Labor Law Journal 659 (1993).
The Need For Pension Reform, reprinted in Vital Speeches of the Day
(1994).
The Retirement Protection Act, 46 Labor Law Journal 245 (1995).
Keeping the Pension System Sound, reprinted in Vital Speeches of The
Day
(1996).
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