Employee Benefits Conference (C67694)

Marcus J. Aron, CPA, CGMA Chief, Division of Accounting Services Employee Benefits Security Administration U.S. Department of Labor Washington, D.C. Mr. Aron has over thirty years of experience with EBSA working with audits of ERISA-covered plans. As the Chief, Division of Accounting Services, Mr. Aron’s responsibilities include implementation of EBSA’s CPA Firm Inspection Program, providing technical assistance to plan filers and plan professionals, and providing ERISA-related accounting and auditing expertise within EBSA. Mr. Aron is a certified public accountant and holds a B.B.A. degree with a major in accounting from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Jacob M. Mattinson focuses his practice on employee benefits and matters related to 401(k), 403(b), pension, executive compensation, health care reform, and cafeteria and welfare plans. Jacob assists clients in drafting employee benefit plan documents and amendments. He represents clients in matters before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), US Department of Labor (DOL) and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation with respect to plan qualification issues. He also counsels privately and publicly held corporations and tax-exempt entities on a variety of benefits and Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) issues, including ERISA fiduciary issues, compliance with the Affordable Care Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), ERISA implications in corporate transactions, ERISA administrative claims and appeals, and executive compensation matters. While in law school, Jacob was editor in chief of the Penn State Law Review. In addition, Jacob served as a legal intern for the Honorable Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. Jacob is the Chairperson of the Young Professionals Board of Equip for Equality. Internally, Jacob serves on the Firm’s Pro Bono and Community Service Committee.

Haley Dow is an Associate at McDermott Will & Emery. Haley focuses her practice on employee benefits and executive compensation matters for public and private companies. A specialist on matters related to tax-qualified pension plans, health and welfare plans and deferred compensation arrangements, Haley also has experience handling correction and administrative matters before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Labor (DOL). She advises plan sponsors in a wide range of industries, from Fortune 500 companies to health service providers and tax-exempt organizations. Haley also regularly leads due diligence and advises on liability related to retirement plans, health and welfare plans and executive compensation in stock purchase and asset purchase transactions.

Marilee P. Lau, CPA Consultant and Retired Partner KPMG LLP Before retiring in 2009, Marilee was KPMG’s National Partner-in-Charge of the Employee Benefit Audit Practice. Marilee is currently teaching EBP courses and providing consulting services on EBP accounting and auditing issues to CPA firms specializing in EBP audits. She is a founding member and a past Chair of the Executive Committee for the AICPA’s Audit Quality Center for Employee Benefit Plans, EBP Experts Panel and is currently a subject matter expert for EBP Peer Review Oversights.

Marilee has also served on various task forces of the AICPA which include the audit guide revisions task force, the ESOP task force and the Multiemployer task force. She is a past member of the Accounting Committee for the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and the ERISA Advisory Council of the Department of Labor representing the accounting profession. As of April 2020 she is the consulting CPA on staff for the Colorado Society of CPAs overseeing their peer review program for Washington, Colorado and New Mexico.

Marilee earned her B.S. in economics and her M.B.A. in accounting from Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA. Contact information is [email protected] or 415-706-6331.

 

Debbie is a client serving partner and a member of Grant Thornton LLP’s national professional standards group, specializing in EBP audits. She has over 35 years of experience in auditing benefit plans and has practiced exclusively in this area for the past 29 years. She is the partner or concurring partner on some of the firm’s most complex employee benefit plan engagements, and is the Firm’s most knowledgeable specialist in employee benefit plans. She is actively involved with national office initiatives in the area of employee benefit plans, including development and teaching of in-house training programs. She serves as a technical resource for her firm on employee-benefit-plan auditing, accounting and reporting issues, and is the Firm’s designated audit partner who has firm-wide responsibility for the quality of the Firm’s employee benefit plan audit practice.

Debbie is the current chairperson of the executive committee of the AICPA’s Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center (EBPAQC). She is actively involved in various industry committees and task forces, including being a frequent speaker at industry conferences on EBPs. She prevously chaired the AICPA Employee Benefit Plans Expert Panel (Expert Panel), she served multiple years on the AICPA’s Technical Standards Subcommittee of the Professional Ethics Committee (the subcommittee tasked with reviewing deficient audit work performed in the industry), and she was the accounting profession’s appointee to the U.S. Department of Labor’s ERISA Advisory Council in 2014 where she completed her three-year term.

Austin Zarbuck, CPA is the director of innovation in the employee benefit plan audit practice at Grant Thornton LLP. He assists teams by identifying ways to work more efficiently, increase quality, and deliver insights through developing innovation solutions. He recently completed a two year rotation with Grant Thornton's national audit innovation department. He has eight years of experience auditing benefit plans and plan sponsors in a variety of industries, under both AICPA and PCAOB audit standards. Austin received his bachelor's and master's degrees in accounting from Augustana College and The Ohio State University, respectively.

 

Lara G. Stanton, CPA, Senior Manager has over 9 years of audit experience with a concentration in the employee benefits industry. She has been with BDO Seidman, LLP for over six years and had previously managed the BDO Atlanta office's employee benefit plan audit and Form 5500 preparation practice. She currently reviews employee benefit plan audit files and Form 5500s, and provides consultation for several BDO offices around the United States. Lara is a co-author of the internal BDO Seidman, LLP Employee Benefit Plan Audit Manual. She also participates in national training sessions on various employee benefit plan related topics and was a speaker at the AICPA Employee Benefit Plan Conference from 2001-2003. Lara served on the AICPA Planning Committee for the 2002 and 2003 AICPA Employee Benefit Plan Conferences. Lara has performed ERISA reviews on various employee benefit plans to ensure compliance with certain IRS and DOL regulations, and has provided assistance with IRS and DOL audits. Lara also performs several SAS 70 audits of record-keepers and health care third-party administrators as part of the national practice at BDO Seidman, LLP. Lara has a BA degree in accounting from Aurora University, and in public relations from the University of Georgia. She is a member of both the AICPA and the Illinois Society of CPA's.