 | WELCOME TO THE WP&BC SEATTLE CHAPTER |
Thank you to the presenters at the 2024 Spring Seminar. Don't miss hearing from these preeminent industry leaders at the Spring Seminar, April 25, 2024 at the Hotel Motif, downtown Seattle.
The Hotel Motif graciously has extended discount rates for those wishing overnight accommodations.
REGISTER TODAY FOR THE 2024 SPRING SEMINAR
Biographies
2024 WP&BC Seattle Chapter's
Spring Seminar Presenters
We thank our 2024 Premier Sponsor, 
See the Platinum and Diamond Sponsors on the sponsor page.
Richard Birmingham, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
Rich Birmingham has over 40 years of experience in both employee benefit consulting and ERISA litigation. He is one of the few lawyers in the country who is listed in "Best Lawyers in America" in two employee benefit categories—ERISA law and ERISA litigation. Rich's command of both the substantive and litigation areas of ERISA enable him to give practical proactive advice when consulting with clients and to obtain early dismissal or settlement when litigating ERISA matters. Rich is a frequent speaker at employee benefit seminars and has published numerous articles and client advisories on a wide variety of employee benefit issues.
William Bercek, Manager, US Retirement & Investments at Amazon
Bill Bercek is Manager of US Retirement & Investments at Amazon. Prior to joining Amazon, he served in several roles with National 401(k) Program & Compliance with Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, having managed a team responsible for administration of the Blue National 401(k) Program with greater than 90k participants and $9 billion in assets..
Chris Brown, McAteer
A Harvard graduate, in 1997 Chris began work at Certifax Pharmacy Services, an independent mail service pharmacy based in Portland, Oregon. He remained there through the acquisition by Walgreens until 2005 when he began work at Express Scripts until 2010. Most recently he managed sales teams at Truveris and RxBenefits, leaving RxB to become an independent PBM consultant, ultimately founding McAteer.
His 27 years of pharmacy business experience includes working with: employers, Taft-Hartley plans, Third Party Administrators, brokers, and benefits consultants. Recognized as an educational and entertaining speaker, he's addressed benefits conferences on pharmacy topics from PBM pricing to pharmacy adherence to best practices in pharmacy contracting. In 2013, because of his lobbying the Oregon Legislature on pharmacy issues, The Oregon State Pharmacist Association honored him with a Special Services Award for successful legislative work on PBM transparency.
Heather Brazee, Zillow
Heather Brazee is the Director of Benefits for Zillow Group where she and her team deliver on their promise that the benefits offered will provide support and security for every unique individual and family who chooses to call Zillow Group home. Heather has 20 years of experience in employee benefits and in her current role oversees Zillow’s global retirement programs, health and welfare benefits, voluntary benefits, well-being programs, and leave of absence benefits. Heather has been chair of the Zillow Group Investment Committee for her entire 2 ½ year tenure at Zillow and served as chair in her previous roles. Heather benefits from Zillow’s “Cloud HQ” remote-work philosophy and resides in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her husband and two daughters.
Will Hansen, Executive Director of Plan Sponsor Council of America and
Chief Government Affairs Officer, American Retirement Association
Will Hansen joined the American Retirement Association (ARA) in January 2019 in the new role of Chief Government Affairs Officer. In this position, Will oversees all advocacy activities at the federal, state, and local levels on behalf of the five trade organizations within ARA. In addition, Will is the Executive Director of Plan Sponsor Council of America (PSCA) as of January 2020. PSCA, founded in 1947, has been on the forefront of protecting the American retirement system, and is committed to improving workers’ retirement security by providing advocacy, insights, and education to plan sponsors.
Hansen, an attorney with an LLM in Employee Benefits from The John Marshall Law School, joined ARA from The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), where he was the Senior Vice President of Retirement and Compensation Policy. He joined ERIC from the Holland America Group where he served as Senior Manager of Global Employee Benefits overseeing employee benefit programs for five cruise brands under the Carnival Corporate umbrella. Hansen previously served as the Executive Director of the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee, as well as Legislative Counsel for Senator Robert Casey, Jr. (D-PA), advising the Senator on tax, pension, budget, and social security issues, and as Legislative Director for Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). He also has experience as an employee benefits attorney with McDermott Will & Emery LLP, where he focused on qualified and non-qualified retirement plans.
Suzette Clark, Lockton
Suzette specializes in the design and implementation of nonqualified deferred compensation plans. She is also responsible for the day-to-day activities of the Executive Benefits Division, including 409A compliance and administration, executive disability carve-out programs, key person life insurance arrangements and buy-sell arrangements. Suzette places an emphasis on customer services and gained the Associate of Customer Service designation in 2000. She has more than 30 years of experience in the executive benefits field.
Christine Hawkins, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP
Christine Hawkins, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, advises companies on a wide range of employee benefits and ERISA compliance matters, including plan drafting, fiduciary governance, plan corrections, ACA reporting, ERISA litigation, COBRA, government audits, 409A arrangements, and fringe benefit programs.
Cris Jones, Barlow Coughran Morales & Josephson, P.S.
Cris Jones advises trustees of Taft–Hartley multiemployer plans on the administration of union retirement, health, and supplemental benefit plans. He counsels plan trustees concerning the application of ERISA, federal tax, and other rules, including their fiduciary obligations under ERISA.
Cris is a Board Member and Event Co-Chair for the Western Pension & Benefits Council Seattle Chapter, and he serves as an Advisory Board Member for the American Bar Association's Section of Taxation’s LGBTQ+ Lawyers in Tax Forum. He is a member of QLaw: The LGBTQ+ Bar Association of Washington, The National LGBTQ+ Bar Association, and the American Bar Association. Cris has been active on the board of the WCL Lambda Law Alumni Association. He is currently admitted to practice in Washington, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia.
Karim Lessard, 7 Simple Machines
Karim Lessard is CEO of 7 Simple Machines, an enterprise data and technology integration company. In 2020, Karim co-founded BentoHR to solve HR technology and workflow needs. BentoHR has engaged hundreds of companies to develop a human-centered design approach to digital transformation, driving positive outcomes for employee acquisition and retention.
Mark Lyons, Amazon Pharmacy
Mark received his pharmacy degree from the UW and worked in a hospital setting for 5 years, before transitioning to a PBM. After a short stint with the PBM, he decided to work on the payer side. Mark has managed pharmacy benefits in various capacities for more than 25 years in the Puget Sound from the perspective of a carrier and a large employer. After leading pharmacy benefit strategy at Amazon for 2 years, he was literally chosen from the company directory by a product manager to help write the paper to recommend Amazon build a home delivery pharmacy. Currently, Mark is working with large employers and small to medium sized PBMs to rethink how pharmacy benefits can be delivered in a way that benefits both payers and customers.
Matt Maier, Lockton
Matt has more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry specializing in qualified and nonqualified benefits for both public and privately held companies across a variety of industries. He assists his clients to design/ redesign and implement their executive-level programs to meet and exceed their corporate objectives. He also provides consulting and technical guidance in tax, accounting, administration and the funding of such plans. He has met with analysts with the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) regarding nonqualified deferred compensation plans and is a frequent speaker and writer on topics relating to executive compensation, benefits, regulatory compliance, and industry trends.
Nathan Mathews, Milliman
Nathan Mathews is senior pharmacy benefits consultant and part of the Milliman Skysail, a dynamic pharmacy analytics and reporting tool, business development team. Prior to his most recent role he has spent the last 13+ years providing a variety of pharmacy consulting services to plan sponsors including PBM procurements and market checks, and oversight of PBMs. He has demonstrated success in success in strategic planning, problem solving and has a successful track record of overall cost management for his clients. Nathan has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University and an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the University of Utah. While he is a Northwest native, growing up on the Oregon Coast, he currently resides in Salt Lake City, UT.
Bruce McNeil, Leech Tishman
Bruce is a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel and is considered one of the country’s foremost authorities on executive and deferred compensation. He regularly advises clients on a wide variety of issues with respect to tax-qualified retirement plans, including 401(k) plans, 403(b) and 457 plans, nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements, equity arrangements, split-dollar life insurance arrangements, COLI, and other forms of executive compensation. Bruce counsels clients on all aspects of tax-qualified and executive and nonqualified deferred compensation plans and arrangements for taxable and tax-exempt employers, employee benefit issues in mergers and acquisitions, fiduciary responsibility, and prohibited transaction issues.
He also has experience in practicing before the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in examinations, correction programs, and ruling requests.
Bruce is the Editor-in- Chief of the Journal of Pension Planning & Compliance and the Journal of Deferred Compensation: Nonqualified Plans and Executive Compensation, quarterly publications published by Wolters Kluwer, and a Contributing Editor of the 401(k) Advisor, a monthly publication also published by Wolters Kluwer.
In addition, Bruce has been an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, Drake University Law School, and the University of Iowa College of Law, and is a frequent lecturer on employee benefits matters. He has authored more than 40 books on the subject, including Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plans, published by Thomson Reuters, co-authored the IRA Answer Book, published by Wolters Kluwer, and written more than 100 articles on related employee benefit topics.
William Norris, Moss Adams
Will has been providing healthcare advisory services since 1991 and focuses on the Payer and Managed Care sectors. He has extensive experience working within the operational infrastructure of payer organizations in areas such as claims administration, provider contracting, utilization and referrals management, membership/eligibility, and claims auditing and recovery. His clientele includes multi-state and regional Health Plans, Managed Care Organizations, Self-Insured Employers, Third-Party Administrators, and Management/Administrative Services Organizations.
Will has consulted with large and small payers alike, delivering extensive support in the areas cost containment, operations re-design and process improvement implementation. He has provided his claims auditing expertise to hundreds of self-insured employers assisting them with assessment of their Third-Party Administrators - providing reliable performance measurement and evaluation, cost containment strategies, overpayment recovery opportunities and actionable corrective action strategies. Will has been retained in litigation support matters related to Payer/provider payment disputes – tapping into his extensive experience working in the Payer operations space.
Jon Parker, Aon
Jon is an assistant vice president and senior consulting actuary in Aon’s Health Solutions consulting practice based in Seattle. His primary functions include leading financial analysis as well as day-to-day project support for health and welfare plans.
Jon first began working in the industry in 1989 and has diverse experience including health, disability, voluntary benefits, life, retirement benefits, and financial analysis. Prior to joining Aon, he worked as a consulting actuary in the health consulting practice of a major international consulting firm and as an actuary at a life and health insurer.
Jon has broad experience with large and mid-size organizations with particular knowledge in the health care, public sector, higher education, and manufacturing industries. His consulting experience includes medical trend and utilization analysis, specialty pharmacy trend analysis, onsite clinic analysis, and analysis of regional medical cost variances.
Robyn Piper, Piper Jordan
Robyn Piper, a co-founder of Piper Jordan in 2016, is a member of the Employee Benefits Leadership team at Brown & Brown. Her vision was to launch a consulting firm providing a comprehensive suite of solutions for national account employers. Piper Jordan has since grown to be a leader in the national account space. Her approach to benefits consulting rests on three key principles: hiring seasoned industry experts, launching a state-of-the-art discovery process, and nurturing a professional culture steeped in passion for performance. These principles, coupled with an innovative design approach, drive the creation of benefits strategies that meet members’ expectations while containing costs, reducing risk, and guiding participants toward healthy lifestyle choices.
Throughout her career in benefits consulting, Robyn has established a reputation for driving teams to create innovative and scalable solutions that deliver value to employers and their members, enabling profitable growth and measurable ROI for clients. She served the Treasury and IRS by assisting with the finalization of certain ACA safe harbors and has had the honor of testifying in front of the U.S. House of Representatives. Robyn currently serves on the Policy Board of Directors for the American Benefits Council.
Justin Truckenbrod, Lockton
Justin Truckenbrod is the President of the Lockton Minneapolis office and is responsible for leading Lockton’s efforts in the region, leading the Total Rewards Consulting Practice nationally and executing the company’s long-term strategic plan. He serves on the firm’s Executive Committee and mentors Lockton Associates across all stages of their careers while continuing to serve as a frontline advisor to clients. Justin is a seasoned total rewards executive with more than 20 years of experience in total rewards, health and welfare benefits, compensation, work/life programs, insurance and various other aspects of HR consulting. Justin joined Lockton in 2014 to lead the Total Rewards Consulting Practice, and since then, he has grown the practice while supporting a diverse global client base across all facets of total rewards.
Justin’s areas of expertise include, just to list a few - total rewards optimization; compensation and benefits strategies; analysis and design of health and welfare plans; healthcare network consulting; financial analysis; data analytics; health risk solutions; and merger and acquisition. His experience includes both union and nonunion workforces, public and private companies.