As his name indicates, Gerry Good has gone above and beyond as the chair of the City of Regina Pension Investment Board.
Unlike the other officers on the Regina Police Service, Gerry Good actually looked forward to stakeouts. “I did a lot of drug enforcement work in the ’80s, and when we’d be doing surveillance—you’d always have one car with one person—I’d volunteer to be the one-man car,” says Good, 51, who’s now retired from the force but serves as chair of the City of Regina Pension Investment Board. All that time sitting alone in a cramped car gave him a chance to study. “I’d be doing my homework because sometimes these people don’t move for hours!”
That homework was an indirect result of his interest in finance. “I bought my first stock in 1982, but I started to lose money.” His wife responded: “If you’re going to lose money, at least know why,” and she suggested an economics course at the university. “I ended up graduating with a bachelor’s in administration.”
That was in 1997, the year the Executive of the Regina Police Association asked him to be their trustee on the Pension Investment Board(PIB), which manages assets for five separate pension plans for Regina’s municipal employees, including the Regina Police Pension Board. “I came in as the new kid,” says Good. “My background was how to set up a marijuana grow and how to launder money.” Desiring to contribute knowledgeably to pension board meetings, he enrolled in the Canadian Securities Course(and several others)even though he was working full-time and raising a family(he and his wife have two children).
“He took his fiduciary role very seriously,” says Gayle McDade, manager of investments at the PIB at the time. “He really worked for the benefit of plan members, making sure his education was current and going to industry conferences.”
In fact, Good strives to educate not only himself but others, too. “I’m big on education. The more we can teach people or the more we learn, [the more] we make our decisions on fact and not emotion.” Working with McDade, he arranged evening seminars (held every two years)at the PIB, bringing in various fund managers to educate plan members. The feedback was positive.
Positive, too, was his election to chair of the PIB in 2001. In addition to his responsibilities as a trustee of the five pension plans, he took on more duties including preparing PIB budgets and making presentations to the various stakeholders.
In September 2005, Det. Sgt Gerry Good retired from the Regina Police Service to start a second career, but the Executive of the Regina Police Association asked him to remain as trustee, even though he was no longer an active member of the police force. His acceptance of his new job was contingent upon the fact that he could remain on the PIB. His new employer agreed.
After 11 years, Good’s attendance at board meetings(once a month for the first few years and now every two months)is near perfect. “I’ve missed one,” he says. “When I graduated from university I said I’d take my wife to Hawaii, so I ended up booking my holiday, which turned out to be one of the meetings. But I had booked my trip before I knew I was going on the Board.” Although he isn’t taking any courses at present, he spends about 40 hours a month keeping up to date with the pension industry. And with his second full-time career, the PIB and another committee(the Indian Residential School Survivors Compensation Impact Committee), his day planner is full.
Except Sunday afternoons. He will plunk down in front of the tube to watch NASCAR. “I gotta watch it. It’s my only time I have to watch TV.” But he has no aspiration to drive fast cars; these days, he’s slowing down behind the wheel. “I’m the person that everyone curses at,” he chuckles. Well, at least he’s not doing homework by the dashboard light.
Brooke Smith is assistant editor of Benefits Canada. brooke.smith@rci.rogers.com
© Copyright 2007 Rogers Publishing Ltd. This article first appeared in the September 2007 edition of BENEFITS CANADA magazine.