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Overview:
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is a non-profit, federal corporation under the jurisdiction of the Department of Labor. In 2007, the government agency protected retirement incomes of 44 million American workers in 30,330 private-sector defined pension plans. About 1.3 million people will receive their pensions from PBGC even though their companies may no longer be in business. In this way, PBGC essentially guarantees corporate debt. Although the agency was designed to be self-sufficient, funded not through tax payer dollars but by premiums paid by plan sponsors, earnings from invested assets, recoveries from terminated sponsors, and assets collected from terminated plan, many are leery of the $19 billion gap between the agency’s corporate liabilities and the actual assets of PBGC. In 2007, PBGC was ranked the best place to work in the federal government by the Partnership for Public Service and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.
more
History:
In 1875, the American Express Company created the first U.S. private-sector pension plans. This began a trend that other industries were soon following, including utilities, banking and manufacturing companies. Most of these early pension plans were funded entirely by employers and there was no protection to speak of for the pensioners. 
 
In 1963, Studebaker abruptly terminated its employee pension plan, leaving more than 4,000 auto workers with little or no benefits. Although employees had lost benefits this way before, never before had a company so large denied benefits to so many simultaneously. The Studebaker event sparked American outrage and workers became increasingly concerned about their own retirement packages. Political pressure induced Senator Jacob Javits of New York in 1967 to introduce legislation to protect the worker benefits of private pension plans. 
 
This piece of legislation finally found its desired result in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. The act established the PBGC, which began operations on $100,000 borrowed from the National Treasury. PBGC issued its first pension check in 1975 for $140.75.

 

PBGC History

more
What it Does:
Companies often terminate pension plans, due to financial stress or other reasons. PBGC exists to ensure that employee pension plans are protected in the event that their employer does choose to terminate their retirement package. It does this by insuring employer pension plans in much the same way that one insures a car: “just in case.” The “just in case” with pension plans refers to the event of employers shutting down companies or otherwise attempting to terminate pension packages.
 
However, packages are terminated in several ways. Many companies terminate pension plans without drawing on PBGC insurance. In this case, a company can terminate a pension plan by paying promised benefits to employees, either in one lump sum or as an insurance company annuity. 
 
If however a company needs to terminate pension plans due to financial stress, PBGC pays the promised benefits. In this case, the distressed company must prove that continuing to pay benefits would cause its operations to shut down. In situations of financial distress, PBGC pays benefits and makes strong efforts to later recover funds from the employer. 
 
PBGC is also responsible for protecting workers’ interests by forcibly terminating risky plans. In this case, PBGC can terminate a single-employer plan against the will of the employer if the plan is at risk of not being able to pay current benefits. For multiemployer plans, PBGC provides loans to troubled plans, as opposed to terminating the plan, so that retirees continue to receive benefits. 
 
PBGC guarantees pension benefits at normal retirement age, as well as most early retirement benefits. It also guarantees annuity and disability benefits. However, it does not guarantee health and welfare benefits, vacation pay, severance benefits, or lump-sum death or disability benefits for occasions that occur after the plan ends. 
 

Expect More

more
Where Does the Money Go:
Workers are the primary stakeholders in the PBGC. Prior to the agency’s inception, workers had no real protection for their retirement plans. Many found themselves too elderly to work but without retirement income after their former employer had shut down either the company or their workers’ pension plans.
 
Companies whose pension plans are insured by PBGC are also its beneficiaries. PBGC offers companies insurance plans on their pension packages that sometimes end up acting more as a subsidy than as insurance. PBGC insurance begins to look like a subsidy when PBGC picks up the bill for company pension payouts (see “Suggested Reforms”).
more
Controversies:
Pension plans as administrative expenses
Following the bankruptcy filings of several large corporations such as US Airways, PBGC has reevaluated bankruptcy protocol for pension plans. Currently, large corporations can file for bankruptcy and ask the court to terminate their pension plans that are insured by the PBGC. When approved, this places a onerous burden on PBGC funds, as these corporations are large employers. To avoid these large costs, PBGC has appealed for pension plans to be considered “administrative expenses” in bankruptcy, which would give the payment of employ pension plans priority over the payment of unsecured creditors. But after several court cases, such as National Labor Relations v Bildisco, the Bankruptcy Code is still conflicts with the protection provided to PBGC under ERISA.

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

(Wikipedia)

more
Suggested Reforms:
There is a $19 billion gap between the value of assets held by PBGC and its liabilities, liabilities being all of the pension plans insured by PBGC. The glaring disparity between assets and liabilities has been likened by some scholars to the failed system for insuring savings and loan associations, the implosion of which is popularly known as the S&L crisis. This reality has sparked debate amongst scholars, bureaucrats, and politicians as to the severity of this dilemma, as well as contention over which measure of reform would be most effective in reducing the gap.
 
Policy prescriptions for correcting the problem of asset-to-liability disparity range broadly. Some scholars and economists call for a system of risk-based premiums to help offset PBGC’s vulnerability. Many others have constructed a more savvy investment portfolio for the agency in the hopes that this will increase its assets, eventually equalizing assets with liabilities. 
 
Yet, as pointed out by Zvi Bodie in “What PBGC Can Learn from the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation”, PBGC may have more of a fundamental than structural dilemma. According to Bodie, one of the more discrete roles of PBGC has always been to revitalize depressed industries. PBGC essentially achieves this end via subsidy. By assuming part of the industry’s financial responsibility to workers, PBGC subsidizes insured companies by providing pension insurance. And although Bodie doesn’t contest the merits of government assisting distressed industries, his concern is with the unbending rules of the market which allocate resources efficiently through supply and demand. Critics of subsidies note the distortions committed to resource allocation that occur via subsidy programs. And while more discrete than agricultural or timber subsidies, the payouts and cheap pension insurance provided by PBGC have created yet another dangerous subsidy program. 
 
In February of 2008, PBGC announced that it was confronting its asset-to-liability disparity through new investment policy. PBGC Director Charles E.F. Millard declared that it was shifting its assets from bonds to options with longer term horizons and higher payouts. By reallocating almost $15 billion to equities, fixed income, and “alternative investments” that include private equity and private real estate. (Pensions and Investments)
 
PBGC says goodbye to LDI (by Doug Halonen, Pensions & Investments)
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's New Policy (by Paul Rose, Business Law Prof Blog)

2007 Annual Report

(PDF)

more
Congressional Oversight:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Senate Committee on Finance

 

more

Comments

Michael P. Valant 10 years ago
I have documentation that you are holding a Pension for me under plan Number 73-0726174-001. I retired December 31, 2013 and am interested in the action necessary to get these funds released for my current benefit. I may be contacted thur my noted email or by phone 281 636-6508. Please advise what I need to do to get these funds released. Thank You! M. Valant
Sally Gabrie 11 years ago
How can I be sure this is a trusted comapny that has my SS number ? I have never heard of the credit union that they are connecting me with. I am very afraid of idenity theft. Thank you
Randy Johnson 12 years ago
what legislative proposals have been submitted to congress to curb the transfers of pension benefits to pgbc by private equity firms? the "new yorker", in its jan 30, 2012 edition proposed that: "if we capped the deductibility of corporate debt, and closed the carried-interest loophole, it would not prevent private-equity firms from buying companies or improving corporate performance. but it would reduce the incentives for financial gimmickry and save taxpayers billions every year...
harry shendow 15 years ago
Question: Do deferred compensation agreements that have been lost due to corporate bankruptcy qualify for Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation action? Thanks for your response Harry Shendow

Leave a comment

Founded: 1974
Annual Budget: $427 million
Employees: 804
Official Website: http://www.pbgc.gov/
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
Reeder, W. Thomas
Director

On May 20, 2015, President Barack Obama announced the nomination of W. Thomas Reeder Jr. to lead the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which protects the pensions of American workers whose employers go out of business or terminate their pension plan.

 

The son of Tom and Marilyn Reeder, Reeder was born in Fort Bliss, Texas, and attended the University of Texas, earning B.A., B.S.Ed, and MBA degrees and finishing in 1987 with a J.D. from the university’s law school.

 

He began his career in the private sector as an associate at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld. In 1992, he moved over to Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker, first as an associate and as a partner beginning in 1997, working on benefit law.

 

He took those talents to the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy in February 2000. He started as an attorney advisor and progressed through associate benefits tax counsel, deputy benefits tax counsel and eventually the office’s benefits tax counsel.

 

Reeder moved to the Senate Finance Committee as senior benefits counsel for the Democratic staff May 2009. He returned to the Treasury Department in March 2013 as senior benefits counsel for the Internal Revenue Service.

 

Reeder enjoys randonneuring, ultra-long-distance bicycle rides. He is married to Ruth Fenzi Reeder. His older brother, Joe, served as undersecretary of the Army during President Bill Clinton’s first term.

-Steve Straehley

 

To Learn More:

Official Biography (pdf)

Statement before U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (pdf)

more
Gotbaum, Joshua
Previous Director

 

Joshua Gotbaum was nominated by President Barack Obama to be Director of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) in November 2009. He was approved by two Senate committees, but his confirmation was blocked by Sen. Sherrod Brown, (D-Ohio) who wanted the Obama administration to pressure General Motors to improve the pensions to retirees of the Delphi Corporation. On July 7, 2010, Obama gave Gotbaum a recess appointment. However, he was confirmed by the Senate anyway on September 16.
 
The PBGC is a non-profit, federal corporation in the Department of Labor. The agency protects the retirement incomes of the more than 44 million American workers who are covered by private-sector defined pension plans. When a company goes out of business, PBGC essentially guarantees the corporate pension obligations. Although PBGC was intended to be self-sustaining, the flood of bankruptcies caused by the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 opened up a $33 billion gap between the agency’s corporate liabilities and PBGC’s actual assets.
 
Born September 18, 1951, in New York City, Gotbaum spent his childhood in Evanston, Illinois, moving to Westchester, N.Y., as a teenager where his father relocated after his parents divorced. Gotbaum’s father, Victor, served as president of the largest municipal union in New York City and his mother, Sarah, was a sociologist.
 
Gotbaum graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1969, earned his A.B. at Stanford in 1973, a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1978, and an M.A. in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, also in 1978.
 
After graduation from Stanford, Gotbaum served as a consultant to the Ford administration for a short time at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. While still at Harvard Law, he joined the Carter administration as a policy analyst at the Department of Energy. After earning his law degree, he was an executive assistant in the Office of the Advisor to the President on Inflation and as an associate director for economics on the White House Domestic Policy Staff.
 
In 1981, he joined Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colorado) for a short time as a legislative assistant for economic and budget issues. But in the wake of Republican Ronald Reagan’s successful campaign for the White House, Gotbaum in 1981 decided to take a shot at private sector success, joining the investment bank Lazard Frères & Co. He worked Lazard’s London and New York offices, becoming a general partner in 1990. While with Lazard, Gotbaum was involved in the leveraged sale of RJR Nabisco, representation of both unions and management in the steel and airline industries, the leveraged acquisition of Avis Europe, and the privatization of Conrail.
 
 In 1994, Gotbaum left Lazard to join the Clinton administration, serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Economic Security from 1994 to 1995; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy from 1996 to 1997; and Executive Associate Director and Controller in the Office of Management and Budget from 1997 to 2000.
 
His party out of power after the Republican victory in the 2000 elections, Gotbaum returned to the private sector, working from 2001 to 2003 as the first CEO of the September 11th Fund, a charity that collected $534 million from more than two million donors and distributed a total of 559 grants totaling $528 million. Grants from the Fund provided cash assistance, counseling and other services to the families of those killed, injured, or displaced in the 9/11 attacks. The Fund also provided grants to affected small businesses and community organizations. From 2003 to 2005, he was Chapter 11 bankruptcy trustee for Hawaiian Airlines, which emerged successfully from bankruptcy owing in part to his efforts. From 2006 to 2009, Gotbaum worked as an operating partner at Blue Wolf Capital, a New York-based private equity firm. He was chairman and chief restructuring officer of Platform Learning, an educational services provider specializing in tutoring that had gone into bankruptcy.
 
Gotbaum was no stranger to controversy during this period. In 2001, the 9/11 Fund was criticized for giving some of its funds to nonprofits, and Gotbaum went on TV to explain the fund’s workings. In 2005, as Hawaiian Airlines came out of bankruptcy, Gotbaum was criticized for requesting an $8 million bonus for his work, and for allegedly lavish expenses, such as the $276,562 rental of a luxurious beachfront home at Black Point, an exclusive beachfront neighborhood on Oahu Island. In the end, the bankruptcy court granted Gotbaum a bonus of $250,000 to supplement his $1.7 million compensation.
 
After Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, Gotbaum was one of the leaders of his Treasury Department transition team.
 
Gotbaum married Joyce Thornhill, a vice-president at J.P. Morgan and Company, in 1989, and they have three children, Emma, Adam and Jordan. A Democrat, Gotbaum has donated $48,000 to Democratic candidates and causes, including $28,000 to the Democratic National Committee and $1,000 to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
 
Biographical Information (Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs)
Help for America’s Healing (by Mary Tamer, Kennedy School Bulletin)
Using a Gift for Giving to Help 9/11 Victims (by Robin Finn, New York Times)
 
 
more
Bookmark and Share
Overview:
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is a non-profit, federal corporation under the jurisdiction of the Department of Labor. In 2007, the government agency protected retirement incomes of 44 million American workers in 30,330 private-sector defined pension plans. About 1.3 million people will receive their pensions from PBGC even though their companies may no longer be in business. In this way, PBGC essentially guarantees corporate debt. Although the agency was designed to be self-sufficient, funded not through tax payer dollars but by premiums paid by plan sponsors, earnings from invested assets, recoveries from terminated sponsors, and assets collected from terminated plan, many are leery of the $19 billion gap between the agency’s corporate liabilities and the actual assets of PBGC. In 2007, PBGC was ranked the best place to work in the federal government by the Partnership for Public Service and American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.
more
History:
In 1875, the American Express Company created the first U.S. private-sector pension plans. This began a trend that other industries were soon following, including utilities, banking and manufacturing companies. Most of these early pension plans were funded entirely by employers and there was no protection to speak of for the pensioners. 
 
In 1963, Studebaker abruptly terminated its employee pension plan, leaving more than 4,000 auto workers with little or no benefits. Although employees had lost benefits this way before, never before had a company so large denied benefits to so many simultaneously. The Studebaker event sparked American outrage and workers became increasingly concerned about their own retirement packages. Political pressure induced Senator Jacob Javits of New York in 1967 to introduce legislation to protect the worker benefits of private pension plans. 
 
This piece of legislation finally found its desired result in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. The act established the PBGC, which began operations on $100,000 borrowed from the National Treasury. PBGC issued its first pension check in 1975 for $140.75.

 

PBGC History

more
What it Does:
Companies often terminate pension plans, due to financial stress or other reasons. PBGC exists to ensure that employee pension plans are protected in the event that their employer does choose to terminate their retirement package. It does this by insuring employer pension plans in much the same way that one insures a car: “just in case.” The “just in case” with pension plans refers to the event of employers shutting down companies or otherwise attempting to terminate pension packages.
 
However, packages are terminated in several ways. Many companies terminate pension plans without drawing on PBGC insurance. In this case, a company can terminate a pension plan by paying promised benefits to employees, either in one lump sum or as an insurance company annuity. 
 
If however a company needs to terminate pension plans due to financial stress, PBGC pays the promised benefits. In this case, the distressed company must prove that continuing to pay benefits would cause its operations to shut down. In situations of financial distress, PBGC pays benefits and makes strong efforts to later recover funds from the employer. 
 
PBGC is also responsible for protecting workers’ interests by forcibly terminating risky plans. In this case, PBGC can terminate a single-employer plan against the will of the employer if the plan is at risk of not being able to pay current benefits. For multiemployer plans, PBGC provides loans to troubled plans, as opposed to terminating the plan, so that retirees continue to receive benefits. 
 
PBGC guarantees pension benefits at normal retirement age, as well as most early retirement benefits. It also guarantees annuity and disability benefits. However, it does not guarantee health and welfare benefits, vacation pay, severance benefits, or lump-sum death or disability benefits for occasions that occur after the plan ends. 
 

Expect More

more
Where Does the Money Go:
Workers are the primary stakeholders in the PBGC. Prior to the agency’s inception, workers had no real protection for their retirement plans. Many found themselves too elderly to work but without retirement income after their former employer had shut down either the company or their workers’ pension plans.
 
Companies whose pension plans are insured by PBGC are also its beneficiaries. PBGC offers companies insurance plans on their pension packages that sometimes end up acting more as a subsidy than as insurance. PBGC insurance begins to look like a subsidy when PBGC picks up the bill for company pension payouts (see “Suggested Reforms”).
more
Controversies:
Pension plans as administrative expenses
Following the bankruptcy filings of several large corporations such as US Airways, PBGC has reevaluated bankruptcy protocol for pension plans. Currently, large corporations can file for bankruptcy and ask the court to terminate their pension plans that are insured by the PBGC. When approved, this places a onerous burden on PBGC funds, as these corporations are large employers. To avoid these large costs, PBGC has appealed for pension plans to be considered “administrative expenses” in bankruptcy, which would give the payment of employ pension plans priority over the payment of unsecured creditors. But after several court cases, such as National Labor Relations v Bildisco, the Bankruptcy Code is still conflicts with the protection provided to PBGC under ERISA.

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

(Wikipedia)

more
Suggested Reforms:
There is a $19 billion gap between the value of assets held by PBGC and its liabilities, liabilities being all of the pension plans insured by PBGC. The glaring disparity between assets and liabilities has been likened by some scholars to the failed system for insuring savings and loan associations, the implosion of which is popularly known as the S&L crisis. This reality has sparked debate amongst scholars, bureaucrats, and politicians as to the severity of this dilemma, as well as contention over which measure of reform would be most effective in reducing the gap.
 
Policy prescriptions for correcting the problem of asset-to-liability disparity range broadly. Some scholars and economists call for a system of risk-based premiums to help offset PBGC’s vulnerability. Many others have constructed a more savvy investment portfolio for the agency in the hopes that this will increase its assets, eventually equalizing assets with liabilities. 
 
Yet, as pointed out by Zvi Bodie in “What PBGC Can Learn from the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation”, PBGC may have more of a fundamental than structural dilemma. According to Bodie, one of the more discrete roles of PBGC has always been to revitalize depressed industries. PBGC essentially achieves this end via subsidy. By assuming part of the industry’s financial responsibility to workers, PBGC subsidizes insured companies by providing pension insurance. And although Bodie doesn’t contest the merits of government assisting distressed industries, his concern is with the unbending rules of the market which allocate resources efficiently through supply and demand. Critics of subsidies note the distortions committed to resource allocation that occur via subsidy programs. And while more discrete than agricultural or timber subsidies, the payouts and cheap pension insurance provided by PBGC have created yet another dangerous subsidy program. 
 
In February of 2008, PBGC announced that it was confronting its asset-to-liability disparity through new investment policy. PBGC Director Charles E.F. Millard declared that it was shifting its assets from bonds to options with longer term horizons and higher payouts. By reallocating almost $15 billion to equities, fixed income, and “alternative investments” that include private equity and private real estate. (Pensions and Investments)
 
PBGC says goodbye to LDI (by Doug Halonen, Pensions & Investments)
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's New Policy (by Paul Rose, Business Law Prof Blog)

2007 Annual Report

(PDF)

more
Congressional Oversight:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Senate Committee on Finance

 

more

Comments

Michael P. Valant 10 years ago
I have documentation that you are holding a Pension for me under plan Number 73-0726174-001. I retired December 31, 2013 and am interested in the action necessary to get these funds released for my current benefit. I may be contacted thur my noted email or by phone 281 636-6508. Please advise what I need to do to get these funds released. Thank You! M. Valant
Sally Gabrie 11 years ago
How can I be sure this is a trusted comapny that has my SS number ? I have never heard of the credit union that they are connecting me with. I am very afraid of idenity theft. Thank you
Randy Johnson 12 years ago
what legislative proposals have been submitted to congress to curb the transfers of pension benefits to pgbc by private equity firms? the "new yorker", in its jan 30, 2012 edition proposed that: "if we capped the deductibility of corporate debt, and closed the carried-interest loophole, it would not prevent private-equity firms from buying companies or improving corporate performance. but it would reduce the incentives for financial gimmickry and save taxpayers billions every year...
harry shendow 15 years ago
Question: Do deferred compensation agreements that have been lost due to corporate bankruptcy qualify for Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation action? Thanks for your response Harry Shendow

Leave a comment

Founded: 1974
Annual Budget: $427 million
Employees: 804
Official Website: http://www.pbgc.gov/
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
Reeder, W. Thomas
Director

On May 20, 2015, President Barack Obama announced the nomination of W. Thomas Reeder Jr. to lead the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which protects the pensions of American workers whose employers go out of business or terminate their pension plan.

 

The son of Tom and Marilyn Reeder, Reeder was born in Fort Bliss, Texas, and attended the University of Texas, earning B.A., B.S.Ed, and MBA degrees and finishing in 1987 with a J.D. from the university’s law school.

 

He began his career in the private sector as an associate at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld. In 1992, he moved over to Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker, first as an associate and as a partner beginning in 1997, working on benefit law.

 

He took those talents to the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy in February 2000. He started as an attorney advisor and progressed through associate benefits tax counsel, deputy benefits tax counsel and eventually the office’s benefits tax counsel.

 

Reeder moved to the Senate Finance Committee as senior benefits counsel for the Democratic staff May 2009. He returned to the Treasury Department in March 2013 as senior benefits counsel for the Internal Revenue Service.

 

Reeder enjoys randonneuring, ultra-long-distance bicycle rides. He is married to Ruth Fenzi Reeder. His older brother, Joe, served as undersecretary of the Army during President Bill Clinton’s first term.

-Steve Straehley

 

To Learn More:

Official Biography (pdf)

Statement before U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (pdf)

more
Gotbaum, Joshua
Previous Director

 

Joshua Gotbaum was nominated by President Barack Obama to be Director of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) in November 2009. He was approved by two Senate committees, but his confirmation was blocked by Sen. Sherrod Brown, (D-Ohio) who wanted the Obama administration to pressure General Motors to improve the pensions to retirees of the Delphi Corporation. On July 7, 2010, Obama gave Gotbaum a recess appointment. However, he was confirmed by the Senate anyway on September 16.
 
The PBGC is a non-profit, federal corporation in the Department of Labor. The agency protects the retirement incomes of the more than 44 million American workers who are covered by private-sector defined pension plans. When a company goes out of business, PBGC essentially guarantees the corporate pension obligations. Although PBGC was intended to be self-sustaining, the flood of bankruptcies caused by the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009 opened up a $33 billion gap between the agency’s corporate liabilities and PBGC’s actual assets.
 
Born September 18, 1951, in New York City, Gotbaum spent his childhood in Evanston, Illinois, moving to Westchester, N.Y., as a teenager where his father relocated after his parents divorced. Gotbaum’s father, Victor, served as president of the largest municipal union in New York City and his mother, Sarah, was a sociologist.
 
Gotbaum graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1969, earned his A.B. at Stanford in 1973, a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1978, and an M.A. in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, also in 1978.
 
After graduation from Stanford, Gotbaum served as a consultant to the Ford administration for a short time at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. While still at Harvard Law, he joined the Carter administration as a policy analyst at the Department of Energy. After earning his law degree, he was an executive assistant in the Office of the Advisor to the President on Inflation and as an associate director for economics on the White House Domestic Policy Staff.
 
In 1981, he joined Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colorado) for a short time as a legislative assistant for economic and budget issues. But in the wake of Republican Ronald Reagan’s successful campaign for the White House, Gotbaum in 1981 decided to take a shot at private sector success, joining the investment bank Lazard Frères & Co. He worked Lazard’s London and New York offices, becoming a general partner in 1990. While with Lazard, Gotbaum was involved in the leveraged sale of RJR Nabisco, representation of both unions and management in the steel and airline industries, the leveraged acquisition of Avis Europe, and the privatization of Conrail.
 
 In 1994, Gotbaum left Lazard to join the Clinton administration, serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Economic Security from 1994 to 1995; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy from 1996 to 1997; and Executive Associate Director and Controller in the Office of Management and Budget from 1997 to 2000.
 
His party out of power after the Republican victory in the 2000 elections, Gotbaum returned to the private sector, working from 2001 to 2003 as the first CEO of the September 11th Fund, a charity that collected $534 million from more than two million donors and distributed a total of 559 grants totaling $528 million. Grants from the Fund provided cash assistance, counseling and other services to the families of those killed, injured, or displaced in the 9/11 attacks. The Fund also provided grants to affected small businesses and community organizations. From 2003 to 2005, he was Chapter 11 bankruptcy trustee for Hawaiian Airlines, which emerged successfully from bankruptcy owing in part to his efforts. From 2006 to 2009, Gotbaum worked as an operating partner at Blue Wolf Capital, a New York-based private equity firm. He was chairman and chief restructuring officer of Platform Learning, an educational services provider specializing in tutoring that had gone into bankruptcy.
 
Gotbaum was no stranger to controversy during this period. In 2001, the 9/11 Fund was criticized for giving some of its funds to nonprofits, and Gotbaum went on TV to explain the fund’s workings. In 2005, as Hawaiian Airlines came out of bankruptcy, Gotbaum was criticized for requesting an $8 million bonus for his work, and for allegedly lavish expenses, such as the $276,562 rental of a luxurious beachfront home at Black Point, an exclusive beachfront neighborhood on Oahu Island. In the end, the bankruptcy court granted Gotbaum a bonus of $250,000 to supplement his $1.7 million compensation.
 
After Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, Gotbaum was one of the leaders of his Treasury Department transition team.
 
Gotbaum married Joyce Thornhill, a vice-president at J.P. Morgan and Company, in 1989, and they have three children, Emma, Adam and Jordan. A Democrat, Gotbaum has donated $48,000 to Democratic candidates and causes, including $28,000 to the Democratic National Committee and $1,000 to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
 
Biographical Information (Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs)
Help for America’s Healing (by Mary Tamer, Kennedy School Bulletin)
Using a Gift for Giving to Help 9/11 Victims (by Robin Finn, New York Times)
 
 
more