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Keith Brainard's slides (PDF 179 K)
Paul Zorn's slides (PDF 197 K )
Richard Wobbekind, Associate Dean, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, moderator
Keith Brainard
Research Director
National Association of State Retirement Administrators
As research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, Keith Brainard collects, prepares and distributes to NASRA members news, studies and reports pertinent to public retirement system administration and policy. NASRA members are the directors and administrators of 75 statewide public retirement systems who oversee public retirement systems with combined assets of $1.9 trillion and that provide pension and other benefits for three-fourths of all state and local government workers in the U.S..
Keith speaks frequently on public pension issues and is the author of the NASRA white paper, “Myths & Misperceptions of Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution Plans.” He coauthored in 2004 a Wharton School Pension Research Council working paper, “Profitable Prudence: The Case for Public Defined Benefit Plans,” which measured the economic effects of public pension funds. Keith maintains the Public Fund Survey , an online compendium of public pension data sponsored jointly by NASRA and the National Council on Teacher Retirement.
Mr. Brainard previously served as manager of budget & planning for the Arizona State Retirement System and he performed fiscal research and analysis for the Texas and Arizona legislatures. He has a master's degree from the University of Texas-Austin, LBJ School of Public Affairs.
Paul Zorn
Director of Governmental Research
Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Company
Paul Zorn is Director of Governmental Research at Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Company and is located in the firm's Southfield, Michigan office. He specializes in research related to public retirement systems and employee benefit plans, and acts as the GRS resource person on federal and state laws, accounting standards, Social Security, and the benefit-related policies of the national public-sector organizations.
In his 22 years of consulting experience, Mr. Zorn has conducted numerous studies of employee benefits, including surveys related to plan administration, benefit provision, actuarial valuations, funding, and investments. He played a key role in designing the Public Pension Coordinating Council's Survey of State and Local Government Employee Retirement Systems and carried out the research for over a decade. Recently, he has focused on retiree health care and has written research reports offering case studies on how retiree health care is provided through state retirement systems and on the funding vehicles used. He also served on the Governmental Accounting Standards Board's Task Force on Other Postemployment Benefits (OPEB), a project to establish accounting standards for retiree health benefits.
Mr. Zorn's research has been used by plan administrators, legislative analysts, actuaries, and other benefit professionals, and has been quoted in the national press. He has spoken on benefit issues to a wide range of groups including: the AARP's National Retired Teachers Association, the Government Finance Officers Association, the Wharton School's Pension Research Council, the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, the National Council on Teacher Retirement, the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems, and the National Education Association.
He has a BA in English from the University of Michigan, and an MA in Public Policy Studies from the University of Chicago.
