CEO, DeFrehn and Associates LLC

Randy has served multiemployer plans, their participants and sponsoring organizations for more than 40 years, spanning a broad spectrum of roles and resulting in a unique perspective.  In January 2017 he assumed his current position as an independent consultant and head of DeFrehn and Associates LLC where he is engaged in benefits and labor relations consulting with an emphasis on alternative pension plan designs.

Before embarking on his current role he served as administrator of national pension and health and welfare benefit plans in the U.S. and Canada, an employee benefits consultant, a registered investment advisor and from 2000 through 2016, as the community’s lead advocate and chief spokesman on matters of public policy as the Executive Director of the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans (NCCMP).  

He has testified frequently before committees of the United States House of Representatives, Senate, and administrative agencies with jurisdiction over multiemployer plans.  He is often consulted by government officials and quoted in the mainstream and trade press in the US and Europe and has appeared on CNBC’s The Kudlow Report, MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show and on National Public Radio. From 2007 to 2009, he served as a member of the Department of Labor’s ERISA Advisory Council and in 2006. he was a delegate to the White House Summit on Retirement Savings.

During his tenure at NCCMP he was instrumental in the passage of a variety of legislative measures to protect the interests of these plans and their participants by organizing and directing the activities of broad based stakeholder coalitions to assess the future of the industry and formulate policy solutions.  Most notable were the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (MPRA) which provides additional voluntary tools for trustees of plans otherwise heading for insolvency to remain solvent and preserve participants’ benefits above what they would have received under previous law.

Recognizing that employee benefit trends no longer respect geographic boundaries, in 2009 Randy joined with like-minded advocates in Canada and the European Union as a founding member of the Transatlantic Consortium of Advocates for Worker Benefit Security to share information regarding developing trends and coordinate comments and responses to government proposals and quasi-governmental regulatory authorities.  This consortium was expanded in 2013 to become the World Pension Alliance which encompasses the full spectrum of pension advocacy organizations (multiemployer, corporate and government sponsored) from around the globe.  

Under his leadership, the NCCMP received the 2013 National Electrical Contractor Association’s “Industry Partner Award” for its work to preserve and protect multiemployer pension plans.  Personally, Randy was recognized as a “CORPaTH Champion” in 2013, and in 2013, 2014 and 2015 Institutional Investor Magazine named him a member of their Pension 40, described as a listing of “the 40 most influential people in the battle to decide the future of U.S. pensions” in each of the three years their designation was published.  In 2015, Randy received the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Public Service Award which recognizes an individual’s contribution and concern for others through the advocacy and advancement of employee benefit plans.  In August 2018, Randy was awarded the New York Labor Health  Care Alliance “Lifetime Achievement Award” in recognition of his decades of advocacy on behalf of multiemployer participants and sponsors spanning a broad spectrum of roles.

A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work. Randy also holds a Master of Arts in Industrial Relations from St. Francis College. Loretto Graduate School of Industrial Relations, where he also served as adjunct instructor teaching graduate level courses in Compensation and Benefits Administration.