By Christian Campen
Assistant Treasurer – Financial Matters
Since I am new to the majority of you, let me start by introducing myself. I began working for the Pension Fund in April of this year. I am responsible for all financial matters including cash management, accounting, portfolio accounting and measurement, and coordination with the consultant and investment managers. My background is in finance and accounting having graduated from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University with concentrations in both subjects. While at Emory, I worked for five years in accounting with The Emory Clinic. Before joining the Pension Fund, I was a cost accountant with Motorola and then an investment analyst for Emory Investment Management. I am a Georgia native having resided the majority of my life in Conyers. My wife and I currently call Covington home with our three year old son and three week old daughter.
Since joining the Fund, I have enjoyed meeting some of you to inform you of what we offer. I have also enjoyed having the opportunity to attend several functions with the Georgia Firefighters Association. The staff which I work with here at the Pension Fund is second to none. With the leadership of Jim and the support of Sharon, Cindy, Leanna, and myself, I foresee a lot of great ambitions being realized. I look forward to the challenges the work brings as well as an enduring tenure with the Fund and its’ members. I appreciate the opportunity to join such a successful and motivated team.
One of the projects that Jim mentioned to me soon after starting was the overhaul of the current website. The team has worked very diligently and has come up with a finished product that will prove to be a very useful resource for both members and prospective members. The updated Georgia Firefighters’ Pension Fund website (www.gfpf.org) provides a wealth of information and features newly designed and simplified forms and applications.
We have made it user friendly by paying particular attention to the format and flow. Also, we expanded the “About the Fund” section with the addition of a mission statement, the purpose of the Fund and statistics of the Fund. We continue to provide you with the history of the Fund in this section as well. The forms have been improved to make them more convenient for our members and prospective members. We encourage you to now type your information into the form while on line and print them for certification and mailing. The “Rules & Laws” section provides you with the Official Code of Georgia governing the Fund. The Code has been separated for our Class One thru Eight firefighters and Class Nine firefighters, reflecting two distinct funds. However, we are now using a common set of forms. In coordination with this, the “Notice to members” section will update you with any changes or revisions that the General Assembly has made.
We are pleased to announce several new features available on our website as well. We now have pictures of our Board of Trustees along with an organization chart of our staff members. The site offers a “Frequently Asked Questions” (FAQ) section which will continuously be updated as new questions are asked. It is intended to be an exhaustive list, but if you do not find the question and answer you are looking for, please call us at (404) 370-5070. In “Recent articles,” you will find letters such as this one that are intended to inform our members of the current events as well as providing an area to look up archived articles. Finally, we are constructing a “Member’s Area” that will allow members of the Fund to review their information that we have on record for accuracy. It also will include a pension estimator that will allow you to estimate your retirement benefit based on current information on file and when you plan to retire. Also, when you access this area, you will be able to input your e–mail address, and eventually, we will be able to send notices and communicate electronically. As of the time this letter was written, the “Members Area” was under construction, however we hope to have it up as soon as possible.
We encourage you to explore our web site and become familiar with the options it has to offer. We also invite your feedback, both good and bad on how we may improve the site and our services to fit our members’ needs. You may do this through the Webmaster. You may also ask any other questions via the “Contact Us” section.
Speaking of improved services to members, I would like to note that we have begun sending out six month delinquent letters to inform members that they are subject to being placed on suspension. We hope this helps cut down on suspensions and dropouts.
Let me close by saying that I look forward to meeting many of you soon. It is a pleasure to be on board and I foresee a lot of future successes together.