Plan Sponsor Council of America to join American Retirement Association

The Plan Sponsor Council of America will join the American Retirement Association in an effort to offer its members access to an expanded array of resources and educational services.

PSCA is a Chicago-based trade group comprised of employee benefit plan sponsors. The American Retirement Association is an Arlington, Va.-based non-profit professional organization with more than 20,000 members.

The American Retirement Association currently includes the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries, the ASPPA College of Pension Actuaries, the National Association of Plan Advisors and the National Tax-Deferred Savings Association as member organizations. Effective Dec. 29, PCSA will transfer its assets and liabilities to the ARA.

There will be no changes to PCSA’s organizational structure. Its board of directors will become part of the leadership council at ARA. The group’s conferences, publications and surveys will all remain the same, Kenneth A. Raskin, PSCA’s chairman, says.

Due diligence

Raskin, partner at King & Spalding LLP, says PSCA sent out inquiries to a range of organizations about the possibility of joining forces. Brian Graff, CEO of the ARA, contacted him and they started discussions.

raskin-kenneth
Ken Raskin

PSCA spoke with other groups to discuss a similar sort of arrangement, but “after doing due diligence, it made the most sense for us to continue to talk with the ARA,” Raskin says.

“They had the resources financially and staff that we felt could help us the most,” he says. “Looking at what our needs were, if [we were] going to combine with someone, we felt [ARA] could satisfy them best.”

For PSCA, the move represents an opportunity to offer its members access to an expanded array of resources and educational services, while at the same time amplify the long-standing independent voice of the plan sponsor alongside a wide array of retirement plan industry professions. For the ARA, the addition of PSCA adds the important voice of plan sponsors and strengthens the organization’s ability to advocate for the private, voluntary retirement system, the groups note.

“Our associations have evolved along with America’s retirement system,” Graff says. “With the addition of this key constituency, the American Retirement Association truly becomes the voice of the nation’s private retirement system.”

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