President’s Message Ken HoHmAn
stepping Back to look forward
this is mY final colUmn as the acaDemY’s PresiDent.
instead of reviewing my term of office and highlighting the year’s ac-
complishments, i would rather take a step back to look at what’s right
and wrong about the U.s. actuarial profession in general and the role of
the academy in particular. let me be clear from the outset that these are
my personal ruminations and don’t represent the views of the academy.
I’ve always had the greatest respect
for my fellow actuaries, and the past
year has only heightened that appreciation. Actuaries are intelligent, and many
are great visionaries. The good and bad
news is that our members are so much in
demand and so engaged in their jobs that
only a handful find the time to volunteer
for roles that can push the profession
forward. Volunteering is not just
an altruistic exercise. I’ve benefited
greatly from cultivating networks
of actuaries around the globe who
help me with issues I face at work.
I’ve also learned leadership skills
from observing the management
styles of talented committee chairs.
More active participation from our
members is clearly an opportunity
for the profession as well as the
individual.
When actuaries first get in-
volved in professional activities,
they frequently are confused by all
the seemingly overlapping organi-
zations, committees, sections, and
councils. Do we have too many ac-
tuarial organizations in the United
States? If we were building the
profession from scratch today, we
wouldn’t have five organizations.
But each organization serves a seg-
ment of fiercely loyal members and
provides different services. The ma-
jority of U.S. actuaries are members
of both the Academy and either the
Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS)
or the Society of Actuaries (SOA);
many pension actuaries are also
members of the ASPPA College of
Pension Actuaries and/or the Confer-
ence of Consulting Actuaries. While
the CAS and SOA serve an international
membership, the other three organiza-
tions are primarily U.S.-centric. The
Academy was created specifically to
serve U.S. actuaries.
are ( 1) cost and ( 2) overlapping functions that strain our limited volunteer
resources.
Cost is a concern. We have five separate staffs in five separate offices, and
consolidation could yield savings. But
there are very different cultures among
the organizations; pooling these resources effectively and efficiently can’t
be done with the stroke of a pen. One
of the interesting things I’ve discovered
during my term as Academy president is
that the professional membership dues
for an Australian, British, or Scottish actuary (professional organizations very
much comparable to ours) are roughly
equivalent to our cost of membership in
either the CAS or the SOA and the
Academy. From that standpoint, our
costs are not out of line with other
national actuarial associations. As a
first step, I believe we need to look at
pooling personnel and certain functions, while still respecting each
organization’s legal independence.
The question of overlapping
functions is trickier. Each of our
U.S.-based organizations has a
slightly different focus. For example,
the CAS and SOA will look at a topic from an educational or research
slant, while the Academy may look
at it from a public policy or professionalism perspective. Could a single
committee adequately consider all
these angles? Perhaps. But I suspect
that one or more of these aspects
would be marginalized.
How does the Academy fit within this framework? Joining the
Academy obviously is a cost to our
members. The problem is that any
credentialed actuary who chooses
not to be an Academy member still
gets the benefit of the Academy’s
public policy and professionalism
work. Each of us should support the
Academy in speaking out on public
