Last week President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate a number of individuals to key administration posts, including the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).
Assuming the Senate concurs, W. Thomas Reeder, Jr. will head the nation’s private pension insurer.
Reeder is currently Health Care Counsel at the Internal Revenue Service, a position he has held since March 2013. Previously, he was Senior Benefits Counsel on the Senate Finance Committee staff (2009 to 2013), and prior to that he served in numerous capacities in the Office of Tax Policy at the Department of the Treasury, including Benefits Tax Counsel, Deputy Benefits Tax Counsel, Associate Benefits Tax Counsel and Attorney Advisor.
Prior to that, he was a Partner at Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker, LLP, from 1997 to 2000 after starting as an Associate in 1992. He began his legal career as an associate with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP in 1987.
The previous director of the PBGC, Joshua Gotbaum, resigned last July, having led the agency since 2010. He subsequently joined the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank, as a guest scholar.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s deficit hit a record $61.7 billion in fiscal 2014, largely the result of a huge rise in the deficit in the agency's insurance program covering multiemployer plans, which jumped to $42.4 billion, up from $8.3 billion in fiscal 2013.
