Closing the Gap with Lisa Gomez

Episode Introduction - The Gap with Lisa Gomez 

A retirement plan can look like a line item on a pay stub until you’re the person without one. That’s where this conversation starts, and why it gets so real so fast. I’m joined by Lisa Gomez, a nationally recognized employee benefits leader and the former head of the Employee Benefits Security Administration at the U.S. Department of Labor, the agency responsible for protecting the workplace benefits of more than 150 million Americans.

Episode Description

Lisa takes us through her journey from a working-class upbringing with limited access to employer benefits to nearly three decades as an ERISA and employee benefits attorney. We talk about what she learned advising plan sponsors across every kind of industry, and why that on-the-ground experience matters when regulators write retirement policy that has to work in the real world. If you care about retirement security, 401(k) access, fiduciary responsibility, and what it actually takes to help workers retire with dignity, her perspective is hard to beat.

We also get into the moment she stepped into EBSA leadership during a period of major retirement policy evolution. Secure 2.0, ESG debates, lifetime income questions, and a constant drumbeat of stakeholder pressure all collided at once. Lisa explains how she thinks about collaboration versus enforcement, why “good actors” need support as much as bad actors need consequences, and what she’s most proud of that most people never notice.

One of the biggest practical takeaways is communication: disclosures only matter if people can read them, understand them, and use them. We discuss why clearer disclosures can improve participant outcomes, strengthen accountability, and help close the retirement savings gap and retirement coverage gap over time.

If Part 1 sparks questions for you, share it with a colleague and tell me what you want answered in Part 2. Subscribe, leave a review, and send this episode to someone who needs a clearer path to retirement security.

Guest Bio:

Lisa is the founding member of LMG Collaborative Consulting Solutions, a firm providing comprehensive public policy and other consulting services in all aspects of employee benefits, including compliance, plan administration, plan design, advocacy, communications, government agency engagement, and strategic planning. In this new chapter, Lisa seeks to partner with employers and other plan sponsors and administrators, labor organizations, service providers, and worker advocates and use her experience and voice to help them successfully achieve their goals. Lisa can also serve as a professional trustee or independent fiduciary, expert witness, arbitrator, or mediator. 

Lisa was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employee Benefits Security for the U.S. Department of Labor in July 2021 and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in September 2022. She was sworn in by Secretary of Labor Martin J. Walsh on October 11, 2022, and served in that position until January 20, 2025. Previously, Lisa was a long-standing partner with the law firm Cohen, Weiss and Simon LLP, representing labor organizations and employee benefit plan sponsors and administrators, and the chair of the firm’s management committee. 

Contact Lisa M. Gomez:

LMG Collaborative Consulting Solutions
https://lmg-ccs.com
lisamgomez@lmg-ccs.com
917-757-5100

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gomezlisam/

Transcript

How Lisa Found ERISA Work

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Welcome back to the Gap, the podcast where we tackle one of the biggest challenges in America today, closing the retirement savings gap and the retirement coverage gap, while also shining a light on what's actually working in our system. Today's episode is a special one. My guest is Lisa Gomez, a nationally recognized leader in employee benefits and retirement policy, and the former head of the Employee Benefit Security Administration at the U.S. Department of Labor. In that role, she was responsible for protecting the retirement security of over 150 million Americans and overseeing trillions of dollars in retirement assets. But what makes Lisa's story so compelling isn't just the title, it's the journey. She spent decades on the front lines as benefits attorney advocating for workers and navigating the complexities of ERISA before stepping into one of the most influential regulatory roles in the country. And now she's entered a new chapter, bringing that experience into the private sector and continuing to shape the future of retirement from a different vantage point. Lisa has seen the system from every angle, legal, regulatory, and now strategic. And she has a unique perspective on what's working, what's not, and what we need to do to truly move the needle. So today we're going to dig into her journey, what she learned during her time at EBSA, and most importantly, what she believes it will take to close the gaps in savings and coverage that still exist in America. This is going to be a thoughtful, insightful, and I think very honest conversation. Lisa, welcome to the gap. Thanks so much, Shannon. I'm really excited to be here. Well, we're excited to have you. You've spent nearly three decades as an employee benefits attorney before stepping into one of the most influential regulatory roles in the country. What initially drew you to employee benefits and retirement policy?

Growing Up Without A Safety Net

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yeah, so so when I was thinking just about being a lawyer and even just going into whether or not to be a lawyer, I went into it thinking that I wanted to help people. I wanted to find a way that I could work with real people to address real problems that they were having. And so I was attracted to the law. And then obviously, you know, once you get into deciding to be a lawyer, like what kind of lawyer you're going to be. And I did some internships when I was in law school working with the National Labor Relations Board, working with judges, and eventually got an internship working with a labor and employment law firm. So it was a little bit of, you know, accidental getting into that specific area and because I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. But it was a really good fit for me because having come from a working class family and seeing both for my parents, you know, struggles that that they had gone through, we had gone through, you know, growing up and in not having all of the job protections that, you know, that some people are fortunate enough to have being in a profession, you know, my dad worked in a profession where he did not have a retirement plan. You know, we all know it's a voluntary system. You don't have to have these things, or employers don't have to offer those things. And so knowing, you know, sort of as my as my parents were nearing their retirement age, that they did not have, you know, these things that lots of people kind of take for granted, that they're that they didn't even have them available to them. So many people take it, take for granted having a 401k with your job that you can participate in. So that was really something that was pretty stark to me. And so I was drawn to working with, you know, being in a firm and practicing so that I could do things to help people, to help workers in particular. And as far as getting into ERISA, when I started practicing, there were not, I mean, there were no ERISA classes that were available in law school. You know, the uh the employee benefits was literally a uh chapter in my employment law treatise, you know, in class that I don't even think we honestly ever got to, you know, nobody talked about it, nobody knew anything about it. And when I went to the law firm, they just happened to be hiring an associate in their employee benefits department. And I tell folks that, you know, that I was asked, you know, do you want to be hired in the employee benefits department? You know, I was coming out of law school, I said, hey, it's a job, you know, sure, why not? I ended up really liking it and enjoying the work. And, you know, a couple of years into the job, some of the people who were doing more traditional labor law work, employment law work, said, like, hey, good news. We have an opening and we can save you from that horrible employee benefits work that you've been doing all of this time that's probably super boring and technical. And I said, you know what, I actually like doing this work. And I continued doing it for 30 years. And I I loved doing it. We worked for, you know, I worked for so many different types of mostly in the plans, in the Taft Hartley plan sponsor, so like collectively bargained plan end of things, but in all different types of industries, which was the most fun, you know, working for doing work for plans that covered people in the entertainment industry, people who were truck drivers, people who were ballet dancers, people who were nurses, people, and so for airline pilots. So with each and with large companies, very small companies, and plans that were run, you know, either as a pretty sophisticated enterprise to things that were, you know, in the basement of Union Hall run by a former hairdresser. I mean, it was it really ran the gamut, and I loved that about it. So that's kind of, you know, that's how I got into it. It was a little bit by accident, but it all, you know, worked out really well. It was super, super interesting to me.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

So you've spoken about growing up in a working class family without access to strong benefits. How how did that personal experience shape your passion for this work?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah, so you know, I I think that, you know, thinking about how much stress there can be upon an individual, upon a family, and trying to think about like how, you know, how are you going to think long-term? And how long are you going to have to work? And, you know, how can you provide for your family? How can you feel that you are going to be able to at some time, like during the course of your working life, putting retirement aside for a moment, but just with having health benefits and you know, having, you know, to think twice about can you go to the dentist? You know, do we have dental coverage? Can we go to the doctor? I mean, if there is, and obviously this was also before the days of, you know, some of the more recent protections that came into play, but you know, it was definitely something to be thinking about whether or not, you know, you could afford to fill prescriptions because maybe the coverage wasn't there, maybe it wasn't good enough. Can you attend to certain types of medical conditions that one might have? So just know, or maybe, you know, you can do those things, but for a certain year, like we can't do other things because, you know, someone had a medical condition that, you know, needed to needed to be addressed. So just knowing all of the stressors that can happen within a family. And I mean, thankfully, we were fortunate that we didn't have any kind of major health crises happen. But knowing, you know, other people that we knew or or people that maybe, you know, in our neighborhood, in our community that really did face financial ruin, bankruptcy because they something like that would come up. So knowing those things and also just knowing the uncertainty of you know not having retirement plans, you know, thinking both for my parents who, you know, worked very hard during their lives, but did not know, like going into retirement, how much, you know, would Social Security be there for them? What's it like to be living on Social Security? I mean, is that even realistic? And then also with the sandwich generation, you know, thinking about, okay, now how much do I need to fit to factor in myself, not only taking care of myself, but taking care of my children, taking care of my parents. And, you know, again, my parents were, you know, between a combination of kind of luck and hard work, they were able to manage it even without having all of those protections. But not everybody's, not everyone's story is like that. So it made me really appreciate A, that like these types of benefits, having having benefits at all and having benefits that you can rely upon is not something that you should take for granted or people can take for granted, and the importance of it, and also the importance of just making sure that people understand the value of it and the meaningfulness of it was something that you know shaped sort of my whole career and then shaped also just me when I was going into the Department of Labor.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, I grew up in a similar background. My dad was a CPA and he had a lot he had his own firm, but it was largely based on people in the energy industry and oil. And so when I was in high school, you know, we had the oil bust in Oklahoma. So, and I, you know, all of his clients were going out of business, which obviously put stress on him and his partners. And I was old enough to understand what was going on and what the impact was to our family financially. And so that really shaped kind of like my relationship with money and my ideas about savings. And it really did shape my passion for being able to help people, you know, all over the all over the country, working Americans actually, you know, be able to retire with dignity, which is, you know, why I love coming to work every day. And I think we're so lucky to be able to work in this industry.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Yeah. No, that's great. And it it is so important to kind of take those, those life lessons that you learn. And, you know, on uh just on your story, you know, it's one of these things that people can, you know, look into, look at at a certain, you know, certain occupation and say, well, you know, you have these people who are professionals, they're CPAs, you know, they should be fine. But if you're a small firm and you are really reliant upon a certain industry, and that industry, something happens. I mean, you know, obviously, just even looking back at 2008, you know, and what happened, there were, you know, there were so many people, as we all well know, who thought that either in their own professions, you know, or with their retirement savings, that they would be fine and the world can literally change, you know, in a moment. And so being able to help people both prepare themselves for those potential changes that might happen and like life throws you curveballs in lots of different ways, and also to be able to like both for individuals and also for industries, like how do you weather those changes and be able to sometimes, you know, make lemonade out of lemons? Yeah. It's, you know, I think they're good good skills to have because if you haven't had to go through the hard times, sometimes it's it's difficult to navigate or to kind of think about how to get out of them in the future.

Private Practice Lessons For Government

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Agreed. Before leaving EPSA, you were a partner at Cohen, Weiss, and Simon. What lessons from private practice most prepared you for leading a federal agency?

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Oh, that's a good one. Um so I think I would say a couple of different things. One is that being a practitioner and working with plan sponsors for that long, even though it was, you know, in a kind of different context and working more with defined benefit plans, you know, we had there were clients that had defined contribution plans as well, but but working with these, with people who were dealing with things in the real world, you know, and and knowing how plans actually worked and challenges that plans actually faced, and how when you, you know, have a rule or guidance or just or an investigation that might happen, and being on the other side of that and trying to talk with a regulator or an investigator or you know, a legislator about like how is this going to actually work in practice? Like a lot of times, even for the most well-intentioned people, there's a real gap. You know, you talk about a gap with your butt. There's a huge gap there. And and so I think for myself, having spent so much time in the world of, you know, actually trying to implement guidance, laws, regulations, you know, like expectations, that was a tremendous help for me going into the Department of Labor, which was a path that I had never like really anticipated going into. And, you know, in thinking about other people who have served in the role that I served in, there really were not there there wasn't someone who, like, at least in very recent years, who had had that kind of a background that I had that was not, you know, and they were all they they all contributed and you know had the benefits of different types of backgrounds that helped in other ways. But, you know, when you have people who are coming from the hill, coming from within government, coming from, you know, within government agencies, or again, like working as staffers, working as educators, all of these different things, but had not had the day-to-day of like trying to sit down with clients, with plan sponsors and thinking about, you know, funding issues that can change very quickly, communicating with participants. How do we get people to engage? How do we deal with participant appeals, you know, or communicating, you know, hard, difficult changes that try as you may, like you just got stuck in a really bad situation and you know, you did everything you could and you're trying to fix this. Dealing with litigation, that sometimes, you know, you had to make difficult decisions and you knew that being sued was going to be a potential, you know, issue at the end, and or dealing with litigation that you knew, you know, you really had done everything correctly, and now you're getting sued anyway. So having all of those different experiences going into the position was really, really helpful to me to give that perspective and to be able to sit down with not only people who were working at the agency and in different departments and in the administration to be able to communicate to them. I mean, there there were times that I literally, you know, would be we would be sitting in a meeting and I would say, okay, you know that this is not how it actually works, right? Like your assumptions are it's no offense to you because you've never been there. But that's not, I get why you think that that's how this works. It's not how this works, you know. Yeah, and yes, and it would be helpful to them. But so, you know, so all of that definitely was helpful to me, and I think also helpful to them. So that that part of the experience, also having been someone who focused a lot with clients on communication, whether it be drafting a summary plan description, drafting a notice, you know, about again, something that was required or something, you know, that we just needed to tell people, having town halls, you know, to communicate either really good news or sometimes really not great news. Thinking of all of that and then translating that into the Department of Labor, where I was very focused on with things that we were doing, a having making sure that people understood that EBSA existed, like what our purpose was, why we were there, how we could be helpful, like what we do on a day-to-day basis. And then also with things that we were putting out, whether it be our website or you know, regular anything from like an actual regulation to something we would post on a website, a blog of mine, or me going out and talking with different, with different, you know, organizations, individuals, whatever the case may be, communication of it all and like what the messaging was going to be, and in particular, trying to communicate to people at all different levels, like no matter what role you were in the process, or like where you were from, like whether you were you work for a certain type of industry or you are in a certain part of the country, or you are, you know, a man, a woman, a you know, of a certain race, like whatever, like trying to really think a lot about that and think about like what how can I how can we be communicating things in a way that people can not only understand it, but understand the relevance and importance to them, you know? So that I took from that. And then also finally, I mean, I towards the latter part of my career, I was the the head of the management committee for the firm itself. We were a relatively small firm, about 50 employees total, but it it taught me a lot about management and kind of dealing with obviously even though EBSA was a small agency, it was way bigger than a 50-person, you know, 50 employee firm. But, you know, knew about sort of just the running of the business. And I think both in running an agency, but also in thinking as an employer myself, you know, in addition to being one of the few people who had come into this role having worked with plan sponsors. I think I was one of the few people who had come into this role being an employer myself and having to think about providing, you know, retirement benefits, providing health benefits, dealing with employees. So there were all of those different experiences were super helpful to me in, you know, being to bring all of those experiences into this role and trying to use them in a way to be as effective as possible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Um, when you stepped into EBSA, you suddenly had responsibility for protecting benefits for over 150 Americans. What that's a lot of Americans. Yeah. What did that responsibility feel like on day one?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Yeah, I mean, I will say completely honestly that I well, I won't say day one, but I mean I'll say more like kind of day, day, not day one on the job versus day one of like accepting the nomination and kind of going through the process. I learned more and more about like what this job meant, like what the responsibilities of this position were. And I mean, I, you know, had never really focused on the immense responsibility that EBSA and the leader of that agency has, like to say, you know, to throw out these numbers when you're just looking at them saying hundred over 150 million Americans, you know, over 800,000 retirement plans, over two and a half million health plans, it's over two 12 trillion dollars and just sounds like blah, blah, blah, lots of numbers, big numbers. But when you are the actual person and thinking that what we are doing here and the decisions that at the end of the day I am responsible for, and if, you know, any stakeholder, whether it be, you know, someone on the hill or private stakeholder, or, you know, at that time, my boss, who is the president of the United States, can, you know, well, I guess like interim, but first the secret, first the cabinet secretary, and then the president of the United States could pick up the phone and say, like, hey Gomez, what the heck are you doing? Yeah. It was a big deal. Or, or down to an individual participant who could be calling and saying, Hey Gomez, what are you doing? Or what are your people doing? Like, my family is suffering here, like, and I need you to pay attention. It's an incredible responsibility, both you know, from a it's a privilege, and it's also something that certainly keeps you awake at night, thinking about. You know, anything that any of us do within this industry is equally important in the sense that there is a person behind those numbers. And we never we can never forget that. And saying all of that, being the person who is, you know, having people, you know, being in some of those initial days of that job and having people come into my office, whether they were people who worked with me or, you know, stakeholders contacting contacting me, and you know, knowing that you are like the buck stops with you, and you need to make this decision. Are we going to proceed with that? How are we, you know, we can go this way or this way? Which way are we going to go? And that it's, you know, it's very different from having the impact of those decisions affect one particular client or one particular firm or one particular lawsuit, you know, as opposed to it is going to affect everything. So yeah, you know, no pressure. Um, I think I got a lot more. I I had to pay a lot pay pay more frequently to like, you know, keep the grays away or you know, yeah, find find ways to avoid stress.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

But yeah, yeah. So because then you've got the TPAs going, hey Gomez, what are you doing?

unknown 23:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

The financial advisors are going, hey Gomez, what are you doing? What are you thinking?

Where Real Impact Comes From

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Right, right, right. And you know, I mean, it's definitely not a job. If you want to try to go into a position saying, I want to be a people pleaser and make everyone happy, it's it's total, it's impossible to do that. I think though one thing that I, you know, did have in my background and tried to take with me, and you know, completely honestly, it didn't always work. But I had from when I was in law school, I had done mediation in different kinds of formats. When I was in law school, I did mediation in Manhattan Small Claims Court as part of a class, right? And let me tell you, that is an experience. But I continued to do volunteer mediation in small claims courts in New Jersey. And I'm just kind of like, that's my, you know, and I did, you know, worked in collective bargaining, you know, and trying to like come to mutually agreeable endpoints to the extent we can. Worked on server service provider. So that's like kind of my trying to find if there is consensus and common ground on things. And you can't always do it because at the end of the day, you do have to make a decision and not everybody's gonna be happy with it, but trying to, you know, bring that into this to the position and at least have everyone feel that they were heard. And I may you may not get the result that you wanted, but you know, trying my best to, you know, have everyone's for all of the people who are calling me and saying, Hey Gomez, what are you doing? You know, if I could feel that at the end of the day I could answer them and say, I heard you and we weren't able to do what you wanted us to do, and this is why. Or, you know, I mean, we or there maybe there's some other like trying to like really work with the various, you know, because there is a lot of that, like, what are you doing? Or how can you help us? And it's it's it's very difficult to try to make everybody, you know, you know, definitely not gonna make everybody happy.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

So yeah, for sure. Was there a specific moment in your career where you realized this is where I can make the biggest impact, whether it was in law or policy or public service?

Secure 2.0 And ESG Under Pressure

SPEAKER_00 26:27

It's a great question. I mean, I feel I I have been very fortunate to have had many opportunities where I have felt like I I can make a really big impact here. Um, and so I think that, you know, part of it was definitely in becoming a lawyer, you know, that I I felt like I can make a big impact here and be working with clients to help them achieve the goals that they want. Certainly, when I, you know, had the opportunity to be nominated and to go through the whole process and eventually lead EBSA, I certainly, you know, thought like I can make a great amount of impact here in trying to, you know, establish the narrative and build bridges and make actual changes here. So that was that was on a different level because you know, when you have the authority and you are actually directing what law, what regulations are going to be made, how what how they're going to read, what changes will be done, and you your signature is on those documents coming out, you know, that is you know an immense feeling of I can make real change here. That being said, this next chapter that I am in, I have it has been surprising to me how much how empowered I feel in this new role to be able to make an impact and make change. And while I definitely really, really loved being at EBSA and leading EBSA, the I learned so much while I was there through dealing with so many, you know, dealing with different problems, dealing with different subject matters that I hadn't necessarily dealt with before, certainly dealing with lots of different stakeholders that being someone who had worked so much in the multi-employer industry before, and then going into this new world for me where, you know, I hadn't worked with, you know, so whether they're different associations, it took me a while to learn, you know, even just within the American Retirement Association, all of the different acronyms and who they were and what they did. And so, but and I'm still learning, you know, but I I just got so much exposure to so many different groups that that was all like, you know, really helpful to me. And so now coming out of that experience and just having met so many different people and being exposed to, you know, and and also just learning uh about the government apparatus and how things work. And even though in different administrations, certainly there are different priorities, things that operate differently, but knowing like some of this, like learning some things that I hadn't known before, I in some ways feel that I can be so much more impactful in this role because you don't have the const you have all that knowledge and experience, but you don't have as as many of the constraints that are upon you. I can speak freely, you know. I don't have to check with, especially when you're working on your own. I don't have to check with anybody except my own, you know, the people on my shoulders. Like, yeah, can we do this? So so being able to that has felt I I feel like I can make a lot of impact now. So I really consider it like I'm just, you know, so fortunate to have these opportunities and to be able to find ways in which to keep building, you know, further and further up. And and the the most important thing to me in coming into this looking at like what the next chapter was going to be was exactly to your point. Like, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I want to be able to do something where I feel that I can use everything that, you know, everything that I have learned and gained and people I've met and all of that up to this point to continue on this journey and make the most impact, you know, in a positive way as I possibly can. And, you know, so far it it's been it's been great. I mean, I didn't think anything could possibly match what I was doing, but it's really, you know, it it's been it's been wonderful. So that's awesome. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

That's awesome.

unknown 31:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Your confirmation to lead EBSEC came at a time of major retirement policy evolution. I mean, major. You had Secure 2.0, we had the ESG debates, we had lifetime income discussions. How did that moment shape your agenda?

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Yeah, that's a good one. I mean, there was so much, so much going on. Yeah. I, you know, I if I could have turned back time and had, you know, tried to like plead to people in Congress, like I really, really wish I could have started, you know, at the very beginning of the administration, because it would have, you know, it would have been just, you know, more time, but it would have given, I would have been able to uh focus on more things, you know, within that time. Just uh given given the passage of time, but also, you know, to your point, there was so much that was happening right then. And so talk about being just like thrown into the fire, right? I started, you know, I got confirmed at the end of September. I started at the agency on October 10th of 2022, and we were right, you know, in the like right in the heat of working on the, you know, the ESG role, prudence and alliance, loyalty, and plan investing. So, you know, to have that be the first role coming out in final form, you know, as I am getting there, it was really thrown straight into the fire, right? But it was good because I mean, for me, it's you're just kind of like forced to learn process and everything that's happened up to that point. And where are we and where are we going? And how can I be helpful at this stage? And, you know, having to answer again hard questions, the like Gomez, what are you doing? Or, you know. So, so that was definitely a huge learning experience. And, you know, and but it was good to kind of have that right away. And then, you know, followed in very short order by Secure 2.0. So I feel like there were so many for myself asking myself, okay, like what are your priorities going to be? And other people, like, where what are your priorities going to be? When Congress hands you a law, you know, that a lot of people have been working on very closely, you know, without you involved for a very long time. And then it's kind of handed to you on a silver platter and said, like, okay, here you go. There are things that need to be done. Your agency itself has like over 20 homework assignments, you know, within this, and many of which need to be done in very short order, right? So figure it out. Like, even if you come in thinking, you know, if I was ever, if I ever get confirmed, these are the things I want to do, you know, a lot of those things kind of have to put aside or you know, think about, okay, well, uh, you know, I have to deal with these things first. So, and you know, yeah, secure 2.0, not a not a little law. And not right. So, so I, you know, it it took a lot of working together with with the members of the team at EBSA, who, you know, are wonderful to work with, but sitting down and thinking about, okay, we we need to project plan this. You know, we need to first, we need to develop a list of like exactly what do we need to do, when do we need to do it by and how are we going to accomplish that? And so there was a lot, you know, anything from developing, you know, upstanding a whole new office within the Department of Labor on, you know, to promote and educate about employee ownership. And for myself, you know, to learn that community and learn what their needs were, what their challenges were, what their what the tension, you know, talk about an exercise in like trying to use your mediation skills, you know, like the the relationship between, you know, those communities. So working on all of that, all of the various provisions of Secure 2.0, from like, you know, the 95-1 report to the establishment of a whole new database, a lost and found database. I mean, all of these different things that came up. So it was there was a lot of project planning and again, thinking of like how can we, you know, how can we approach each of these tasks so that we can try to make meaningful progress, you know, on all of them. But also like trying to think about it in not a check the box exercise to just say, like, I got a list of things to do. We have to be able to say, did these things. Right. How are we going to do them in a meaningful way to try to accomplish what's behind, you know, each of these things? And then also just managing expectations because, you know, without naming names, there were definitely like putting aside public stakeholders, there were members, you know, members of Congress directly themselves, or you know, through their staffers, calling our office like in January, saying, all right, like where is it? Where is this? We're like, yeah. Like, okay, we don't we have until this time to do this. Like, it's not you just gave us the law. So yeah, so it was it was definitely a lot of a lot of work and you know, gave me such a high level of respect for for the process and for all the different stakeholders who we did engage with and say, okay, we're going to have meetings and I need to hear from you. And how can, you know, how can we do this in an effective way? But also for the staff, you know, at EBSA and really seeing how for a small agency where, you know, particularly like within the agency, the people who are responsible for, you know, to work on these various things on top of all of the other stuff, you know, that was out there and happening. How can we, you know, how could because we didn't have like as compared to, as I learned, like Treasury and the IRS and HHS and these other agencies that are just tremendous compared to the size of EBSA. We didn't have like a team that works on this and a team that works on that. It was basically the same person, the same people are working on everything. So it was it was a lot of definitely a lot of work. But but yeah, we I was proud of what we were able to do, you know, in the time that we were there. And then throwing in some extra things like a little fiduciary rule. Right. Exactly. Why not? You know, exactly. Throw that in there.

Collaboration Versus Enforcement

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Yeah, exactly. Um, you have spent time bridging gaps between regulators and industry groups. What did that experience teach you about the collaboration versus enforcement?

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Another really good question. You know, I think that it taught me that there is a place for everything and that, you know, we can't we can't have one without the other, you know. And I'm sure there's there's lots of people, including myself sometimes, you know, who say, like, I wish we could just have collaboration and not have to worry about, you know, being heavy-handed or having to, you know, push on certain things. Or there may be some people, you know, I would not fall within this, but that might say, like, there's no room for collaboration. It's not going to happen. You know, it's like we why waste time? Like we should just be like working on enforcement, whether it be, you know, on a regulatory side or through litigation or, you know, whatever the case may be. And I think that, you know, neither is neither of those positions are the right position to just say we can have one versus the other. It has to be a combination of the both. And the the trick is really like finding out the balance there because, you know, there are, you know, there are going to be there are going to be bad actors, you know, there are going to be times where, you know, you really need pushes of enforcement. But at the same time, you know, we have to give people space to be able to operate and try new things. And also to, you know, think that sometimes, despite your best efforts, you know, things don't turn out the right way, you know, or or in the way that you would like to have them turn out the best. So I, you know, I always tried my best to get a balance between the two and between collaboration and enforcement, and also to really, you know, lean upon groups that were, you know, did have very good intentions and were really trying to see improvements to think about like, how can we, like, you know, you know that there are some people out there who aren't, you know, aren't going into things with the best intentions and aren't doing, like, how can we lift up the the people who are trying to do things right? And like what help do they need? Like, how can I be most helpful to them, whether by giving them guidance or, you know, just speaking out to help support them, or you know, help giving them aids, you know, to deal with some of the bad actors, you know, or or some service providers that might not be helping them, you know, like how can I help you to get there? And, you know, and also like how can you know you be using your voice so that when there are people who are quite frankly kind of making you look bad because they're not like how can we be working together to try to, you know, both combat like what are what the issues are? And you know, and how can we also be trying to work with the the people who are on the enforcement side to have them better understand, you know, on the you know, on the practitioner side, on the plan sponsor side, what your realities are. And so, you know, I tried really hard to like have that balance, to have things like, you know, where is it appropriate to have enforcement relief, right? Where is it important to really be working on like not dropping a hammer too soon and you know, trying to work with somebody in good faith? And I think most of the time that worked, you know, sometimes it's almost like uh being a parent in the sense that, you know, some most of the times you hope that you can work with your kids and try to lead them in the right direction. Right. And sometimes you just have to step in and say, okay, you know, we can't either we don't have time or you've done this too many times before, like whatever. So, so, but that balance is hard to find. And I certainly can't claim that I got it, you know, right all of the time, but I but I definitely, you know, tried to do that. And one just really quick example of where I thought that that was very necessary was in the area of Aesops because I kind of walked into the whole Aesop, you know, dynamic between, you know, the Aesop community and the Department of Labor. I walked in as someone who did not have, you know, skin in this game, right? I I didn't really have any, I didn't have preconceived notions. I didn't was walking in kind of uh, you know, clear headed and one and so and was trying very hard to, you know, see how to come out of this with something that, again, not everybody's gonna be helpful happy with, but you know, it's gonna be helpful going forward. But one thing that I thought was really important was to, you know, learn more about the Aesop community and employee-owned businesses that had Aesops, and to have the people at the Department of Labor who were doing the enforcement and for and have seen instances where things had gone horribly badly, right? For them to be able to see the other side and to come in and meet people who had employee-owned companies and you know, to see to see them like that. They, you know, that they the the good of it. Right so that you could, you know, because when you're only dealing with each other in bad situations, you know, it's almost like a police officer who likes you only see people when they're doing bad things. So then, you know, that's that's your perception. So, but if you, you know, for for the enforcement people at the Department of Labor to be able to interact with people outside of a audit or investigation situation, I I do think that that was really, really helpful. And, you know, because it was kind of one step in the, you know, in my like couples therapy for yeah.

What EBSA Does Not Get Credit For

SPEAKER_01 44:31

So Yeah. Pardon me. During your time at EBSAT, what are you most proud of accomplishing that doesn't get enough attention?

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Wow. I was most proud of accomplishing. I mean, you know, go I I was most proud of accomplishing trying to get more information out there generally about EBSA itself, about the existence of the agency, what we do, how we can be helpful to people, you know, whether it is just individual workers, employers, you know, service providers, people on the hill, I mean, everyone. I can't tell you how much at the beginning of my time there, you know, I we would go and, you know, talk to people, whether it was someone on a podcast, you know, with the media or going to visit someone on the hill or talking with individual workers, employers, and no one had heard of us or and knew what we did. And and certainly, you know, that was not helpful because if, you know, to us as an agency, because everything from, you know, if it's your mission to protect workplace benefits, but you kind of like sit there in a building on Constitution Avenue and no one knows that you're the ones to call or what to do, then I'm like, why are we doing this? Right. And also if you need, you know, resources from Congress, but no one in Congress knows that you're the agency that takes care of the these things, then like, why are they going to fight for you? Why are they going to try to support you? And and so, you know, I do think that I am proud of the work that we did to like start going in that direction to make people more aware, you know, to have more outreach and to have and to try to also work it and to try to also work with both the staff at EBSA and the stakeholder community, you know, in in all of these different areas that we were working in, and you know, mental health and in retirement equity, to like think more about why we're doing these things, you know, like why what anything that we are working on, like what's the purpose here? What are we trying to actually accomplish? And how can we make any of this meaningful? I I I came out of it really feeling like I had shifted some perspectives on how to look at these things. So again, you know, would have loved to have had more time to continue to develop it. But so I'm I'm proud of that. I'm also just really proud of I learned very quickly that that the people within EBSA, you know, the the people who work at the agency are such dedicated, talented people. And the and also that there are so many stakeholders who, you know, devote like their entire careers to really genuinely wanting the system to work. And so I saw my role as being more of a facilitator, you know, like I have these people who work at this agency who have tons of experience, are very dedicated, and are very talented. And I have all of these stakeholders who are advocating for their, you know, specific part in this in this community, but they know their stuff, you know, again, talented, dedicated people. And that my role here is not to be like this figurehead who is like deciding on their own what should be done, but rather like having these pieces work together to try to get that done. And I do feel like that was working. I'm hopeful, you know, that that can some that that somehow permeated through the system, you know, and will continue and and that people will, you know, in the stakeholder side, feel more empowered, you know, to really ask for what they need and not assume that EBSA just understands and is holding back because they're being difficult or, you know, they don't want to be helpful. So hopefully some of that stuck through.

Why Clear Disclosures Change Outcomes

SPEAKER_01 49:03

Um, you emphasized clearer, more effective disclosures. Why is that such a critical lever for improving participant outcomes?

SPEAKER_00 49:13

It goes back to one of the things that I've talked about a lot, like in this discussion, that if I I guess two different things. One is just like empower, I guess maybe three things. One is empowerment of both participants and plan sponsors, because you know, as you well know, there are disclosures to participants, there are disclosures to plan sponsors, right? And unless you have information, right, then it's it's difficult to just like know what to do and what decisions to make. But the second part of it is just effective communication, right? So when we were putting out our the RFI out of secure 2.0 about disclosures, that was, you know, that was one of the projects that was very meaningful to me. And, you know, I wish we could have done bit had time to do more with it, but but really trying to understand from stakeholders, from the public, how we how what are effective disclosures? Because to me, a disclosure requirement is not what's important or what's critically important. It's critically important to have an effective disclosure requirement. Because why have anybody spent time putting numbers on a paper that no one's going to read or not or not understand what to do with it? You know, so so you have to have those two things together because that is really like the empowerment and how to how to learn and how to figure out how to make things work most, you know, effectively. And then I think the third part of it is accountability, because you know, even the most well-intentioned plan sponsors, service providers, you know, the people who are responsible for making these disclosures, if you know that at the end of the day, you are going to have to report out on, you know, certain things to whoever you're disclosing this information, to it's just another, you know, another way in which it, you know, I don't think that people are intentionally trying to have poor results and and then do better just because they know that they're going to have to disclose things. But at the same time, you know, if you know that you're going to have to explain or, you know, answer to whoever is getting those disclosures, I just think it's a different, you know, an additional part of the incentive. But I think the the main the main two for me are like the the empowerment through information and like education about what the meaning of this information is, like why you need it, why you're being told this, and why it means anything to you, whoever the you is.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

My conversation with Lisa Gomez was so enjoyable and enlightening that we decided to make it into two parts. This is the end of part one. Please join us May 1st for part two of my conversation with Lisa. You won't want to miss it.