Lunch Lecture: Pennsylvania's Public Pensions
Robert McCord '82, PA State Treasurer
Topic: Pennsylvania's Public Pensions: Challenge, Crisis, or Opportunity?
Speaker: Rob McCord '82, Pennsylvania State Treasurer
Date/Time: Tuesday, January 14, 2014, 12:00 noon – 1:30 pm. Lunch served promptly at noon. Lecture lasts approximately 40 minutes, followed by Q&A.
Cost: $20.00 AHYP or Harvard Club Members & Students, $25.00 Non-Members
(both prices include tax and gratuity)
Lunch: Hot Entrée, Dessert and Beverage will be served.
Place: Allegheny HYP Club Library – 3rd Floor, 619 William Penn Place, Pittsburgh, PA 15219
Few would dispute that Pennsylvania's public pensions are facing significant funding challenges. However, do these funding challenges constitute crisis or opportunity? Looked at one way, are they the sort of crisis that necessitate Draconian measures that would adversely affect current and future retirees who paid into the system and were promised specific retirement benefits? Alternatively, do the funding challenges present an opportunity for the Commonwealth to make some important changes to its investment strategies, reduce waste, improve efficiency, and prompt a renewed focus on the need for greater retirement security?
Rob McCord, Pennsylvania State Treasurer and gubernatorial Democratic primary candidate, will discuss these questions and other issues from his perspectives gained from both his service in Harrisburg and success in the private sector.
Elected in November, 2008, McCord has been Treasurer of the Commonwealth since January, 2009. During his tenure he has guided the state through one of the most difficult economic periods in history. His common sense leadership has resulted in an impressive turnaround in the treasurer’s office, helping retirees, students, and Pennsylvania taxpayers. Under his leadership, Treasury generated historically strong investment returns and more than $2.1 billion for the state, and McCord helped generate many billions more in returns for the state’s two large pension funds. McCord also repaired the $1.5 billion PA 529 Guaranteed Savings Plan, taking it from 70 percent to 100 percent funded in three years, making college more accessible for families across the state.
Prior to being elected treasurer, McCord managed more than one billion dollars in assets and raised money for start-up companies that created more than 2,000 jobs in Pennsylvania. As an independent business leader, McCord served as co-founder and Managing Director of Pennsylvania Early Stage Partners — a family of three venture funds that invested in early-stage life-science and information technology firms; and he co-founded the Eastern Technology Fund, a successful provider of funding that served more than 800 innovative companies.
A graduate of Harvard College and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, McCord currently lives in Montgomery County with his wife and two sons.