Hartogensis’ Term as PBGC Director Ends

Gordon Hartogensis’ term as Director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) will end on April 30, 2024. The PBGC made the announcement on April 24. 

Hartogensis, the first PBGC Director to complete a full five-year term in that office, was nominated in May 2018 by then-President Trump and was confirmed by the Senate in 2019. Before that, Hartogensis managed a portfolio of private equity, venture capital, real estate, and angel investments, and served as an adviser to several portfolio companies.

At the start of Hartogensis’ term, the PBGC’s single-employer and multiemployer insurance programs had been in the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) “high risk” list and their solvency—and therefore, their ability to perform the functions for which they are intended—was threatened. 

But that has changed over the last few years. The PBGC says that its insurance programs “have grown stronger than at any time in the agency’s 50-year history,” and that 2023 was the third consecutive year in which the single-employer and multiemployer programs both reported positive net positions. In addition, they say, that was when the GAO stopped characterizing those programs as “high risk” for the first time since 2002. The agency’s overall net financial position during Hartogensis’ tenure has improved by $102.6 billion, the PBGC reports. 

At a March hearing of the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, Hartogensis told members that before the enactment of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP), his agency had faced a solvency crisis and “widespread insolvencies that threatened retirement security” were possible. 

Among the results of the ARP was the implementation of the Special Financial Assistance (SFA) Program, which was intended to assist troubled multiemployer plans. So far, the PBGC has approved nearly $54 billion in SFA to such plans, covering 786,157 workers, retirees, and beneficiaries.

Other notable events during Hartogensis’ term include: 

• modernization of the PBGC’s major IT systems and infrastructure;
• work to heighten cybersecurity;
• efforts to streamline PBGC operation; and  
• work to improve the PBGC’s customer service for participants and plan sponsors. 

“Throughout his time as director, Mr. Hartogensis demonstrated a clear commitment to the mission of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation,” Acting Secretary of Labor Julie A. Su said in a press release. Hartogensis remarked that he was “proud to serve this important institution and its vital mission of protecting the retirement security of over 31 million American workers, retirees, and their families.” He wrote in his letter notifying the president of the end of his time as PBGC Director, “While there is more to be accomplished, I know that PBGC is well-positioned to execute its mission of supporting private sector defined benefit pension plans in the United States.”