Terrence M. Deneen

Terrence M. Deneen, who died in 2023 at age 72, was an accomplished employee benefits lawyer and public servant inducted as a Charter Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel (the “College”) in 2000.

A native of Illinois, Terry earned a B.A. in History with high honors and an M.A. in Medieval History at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and subsequently graduated cum laude from its College of Law in 1978. A law professor suggested that he enter the then-emerging field of pension and benefits law; this sent him to Washington, DC where he spent his career.

One of the first Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”) attorneys, Terry initially joined the PBGC in 1978 as a staff attorney in the PBGC’s Office of the General Counsel and then worked as attorney in the PBGC Office of the Executive Director, Policy and Planning. Terry has been called one of the founding fathers of the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980, a major reform of PBGC insurance for multiemployer pensions. Terry later said of the experience, “It was a tremendously demanding task, but a tremendously rewarding one, because the system we built in that law really did work for a full generation.”

In 1981, he accepted a position as Assistant General Counsel with United Mineworkers of America Health and Retirement Funds (the “Funds”), one of the nation’s largest multiemployer pension plans, and became sharply focused on multiemployer plan issues. There he implemented and supervised the Funds’ withdrawal liability program. Entering private practice in 1984, he became an associate and subsequently a shareholder/partner with Groom and Nordberg (later known as Groom Law Group), where he concentrated on pension plan termination liability and fiduciary matters.

Terry returned to the PBGC in 1992 serving as Associate General Counsel, became Deputy General Counsel in 1993, and was named Principal Deputy General Counsel in 1996. He participated in drafting the Retirement Protection Act of 1994, which was signed into law as part of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade legislation commonly called GATT. The year 2005 saw a major reorganization of the agency, and Terry was put in charge of PBGC’s multiemployer plans, standard, distress and involuntary terminations, bankruptcy, early warning program, corporate negotiations and Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) legal enforcement functions as the Director of the Insurance Program Department and then Chief Insurance Programs Officer, a position he held until his retirement from the agency in 2011. In that capacity he led nearly 150 financial analysts, lawyers, and actuaries in a wide range of risk management and loss mitigation functions for both the single employer and multiemployer programs.

During his tenure at PBGC, Terry worked on a wide range of legislative and regulatory issues, including the federal legislative initiative that restructured the District of Columbia pension and benefit system. He was involved in taking over countless underfunded pension plans; in so doing he is credited with helping to save the pensions of millions of Americans, especially those in collectively-bargained multiemployer plans. He was honored by the PBGC with the Distinguished Career Service Award in 2007, which cited his abilities as a leader, “respectful of people and institutions, loyal to his colleagues but unafraid of tough decisions.”

In 2011, Terry became senior advisor at Palisades Capital Advisors working with clients to restructure their employee and retirement programs.

College Fellow Israel Goldowitz noted that Terry was a friend, mentor, supporter, and living link to ERISA history to many early and mid-career lawyers, who became leaders in the employee benefits world and have in turn passed on his wisdom to rising leaders. Terry also lectured on employee benefits at the University of Virginia and Georgetown University law schools in Charlottesville, VA and Washington, DC, respectively.

Following his retirement, Terry moved to Chicago and was invited to become a Michael S. Gordon Fellow at the Pension Rights Center (the “Center”). This volunteer position was reserved for distinguished retired members of the pension bar. There he engaged in a range of advocacy projects. For example, he authored the Center’s comments on the PBGC’s Interim Multiemployer Financial Assistance Regulation in 2021. In 2020, he authored the Center’s comments on behalf of retired musicians fighting against an application filed by the Trustees of the American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund (“AFM-EPF”) with the Treasury Department, that would have implemented benefit cutbacks under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014. The musicians and the Center were successful as the application to cut benefits was subsequently denied. In 2022, he and College Fellow Norman Stein co-authored a comment letter on PBGC’s final rule on special financial assistance to multiemployer plans, with the hopes that their suggestions would promote the intended purpose of allowing plans to pay benefits, resulting in a “healthier, more robust multiemployer system” that could be counted on for the long-term.

Terry had the depth of experience and thoughtfulness to be a sought-after voice regarding the future of pension plans. In response to being asked what he would change about ERISA, he replied: “I’d create a national system — a central program like a defined contribution plan but with mandatory employer/employee contributions. It should be a true retirement fund with no withdrawals — centralized, minimal administrative costs, leakage prevention [to stem plan defections]. There are models in other countries where you can buy an annuity when you retire.”

Impressive by virtue of his contributions to the pension world and to the general public through his career and volunteer efforts, he was remembered as a wonderful writer, scholar, and collaborator with a sharp mind, wicked sense of humor, deep knowledge, and excellent judgment. Known as a modern-day Renaissance man, he immersed himself in obscure scholarly topics like medieval history as well as modern culture like the Grateful Dead. College Fellow Norman Stein said that those who crossed paths with Terry considered him to be “brilliant, witty, a fine lawyer and an exemplary public servant.”

Photo Source: The Decade Book, American College of Employee Benefits Counsel 2000-2010