President’s Annual Report
Elmer J. Khal
President, NCPERS

NCPERS President Elmer J. Khal opened the 2002 Annual Conference with a welcoming address to the more than 1,100 registrants. They included trustees and administrators of public sector pension funds from across the country—the leaders of the public sector pension world.

Khal summarized the organization’s notable accomplishments in the last year. Details are included in the official Annual Report.

Summarizing NCPERS’ goals, Khal said the organization is committed to “ensuring that our pension benefits will not be compromised by Congress or state legislatures. We are committed to working for beneficial legislation to improve our members’ benefits.”

Khal noted that prior to the conference more than 150 plan trustees completed NCPERS’ two-day Trustee Educational Development Seminar.  Those attending, he said, “return to their trustee duties better prepared to protect the pension benefits we have fought so long and hard to achieve and preserve.”

Khal noted that NCPERS is different from other pension organizations not only because of its educational opportunities, but because it is the only one with a full-time paid lobbyist “to lobby Congress and to keep you informed about what is happening in the 50 states.”

To better serve the membership, Khal, the organization’s twenty-second president, noted several organizational and informational changes:

• The website was revamped to offer additional information and resources. It now attracts more than 100,000 visitors a month.
• The quarterly publication Persist was revised to serve as a quarterly educational journal.
• A new public relations program has substantially increased media contacts, putting NCPERS’ positions in print and on the web before pension experts and leaders from business and government.
• The PR program is one part of a new and comprehensive strategic marketing plan, designed to identify additional benefits that will ensure the retention of existing members and recruit new ones.

“We will build upon what our founders knew best 61 years ago,” Khal said in his concluding remarks. “Only through national unity can we achieve our goals. Only through national unity can we protect our pension benefits and improve them. Only through national unity can our voices be heard.”