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team that fosters a corporate culture where transparency and communication is the norm is equally important. “You want the organization to be very open, honest, and communicative—you want people to talk to each other,” Breen remarks. “Every day you can read in the Wall Street Journal about another company going bankrupt. Who would have thought 10 years ago that Radio Shack would go bankrupt? However, they had risks like Amazon coming at them, and they did not deal with it. Therefore, I always ask my people, ‘What torpedo could hit our ship and sink us?’ If you are open and you
Making Planning Personal At The Valley, Lisa Burke Lee ’93 majored in actuarial science and minored in economics. Today, she is a division manager at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which is a government agency under the Department of Labor that insures defined-benefit pension plans. It could be thought of as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for pension plans. Lee uses strategic thinking and planning techniques to allocate limited resources wisely. “It’s a struggle to have enough resources for the volume of pension plans that my department is working through; so
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“We’re preparing our students to be people who set themselves apart by looking beyond the apparent, toward those creative combinations of ideas that allow a unique solution to a problem.” —Professor Treva Clark really discuss all those issues, you can usually address them. There’s nothing fatal if you plan.” Breen recently donated $100,000 to the College to implement new technology across campus that will further assist the College in developing world-ready students. The Breen Technology Fund will underwrite an innovative student
we’re looking at different strategies to streamline processes, increase resources, and improve the effectiveness of those resources,” she says, adding that having personnel in place who can think strategically is essential. “When we’re hiring, I’m always looking for people who are very good at analyzing data, but also very good at looking at the big picture and finding the patterns reflected in that data.” Lee uses the same big-picture, strategic thinking in her own life. “As a pension actuary, my life revolves around people retiring,
e-portfolio system as well as new technology associated with teaching and learning. “Any college or university that’s not at the top of the food chain in technology is going to be left behind in coming years,” Breen says. “One of the things I love about the Technology Fund is that by the time they graduate, the students will have a nice e-portfolio.
so it would be foolish of me not to plan for my own retirement,” she says. “I have a picture in my mind of the life I want to have when I’m retired, and I can take strategic steps to create that picture for myself. Retirement planning isn’t just about how to support myself after I’m through working—it’s also thinking about questions like, ‘When do I want to have my house paid off? Where do I want to live after I retire? What are my husband and I going to want to do in retirement?’” Echoing the dictum of effective strategic planners
everywhere, Lee states that plans must be responsive to changing conditions. “If you don’t plan, your picture will never happen. If you do plan, and something changes, you can roll with it,” she says. “Right now I’m saving a lot of money by putting it into my 401(k) as well as other diversified investment and saving vehicles. However, what happens if my needs change, I do not live long enough to reach retirement age, or the market crashes? At least I have that money saved for my beneficiary, my medical expenses, or whatever else comes along. I still have strategically planned to have equity invested in the future.”