Marcus J. Aron, CPA, CGMA Acting Chief Accountant
Employee Benefits Security Administration U.S. Department of Labor Washington,
D.C. Mr. Aron has nearly 40 years of experience with EBSA working with audits of
ERISA-covered plans. As the Acting Chief Accountant, Employee Benefits Security
Administration, Mr. Aron is responsible for managing the resources of the Office
of the Chief Accountant and implementing various comprehensive, nationwide
enforcement programs relating to certain provisions of the Employee Retirement
Income Security Act (ERISA). He also provides ERISA related accounting and
auditing technical expertise within the Employee Benefits Security Administration and is the
liaison with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
(AICPA), the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and other professional organizations. Mr. Aron
provides executive oversight and leadership for EBSA’s fiduciary oversight program for
the federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). The TSP is
the largest defined contribution plan in the world, with assets
in excess of $1 trillion and covering 7.3
million participants. 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.
Austin Zarbuck, CPA is the director 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.
Corey is a Director in the National Employee Benefit
Plan Practice with over 11 years of public accounting experience. Corey’s
responsibilities on engagements have included the supervision and review of work
performed by senior associates and junior staff; leading communications between
the audit team, firm specialists, and clients; reviewing financial statements
for conformity with U.S. GAAP; and identifying control deficiencies, as well as
preparing recommendations for improvement to management. Corey’s auditing
experience includes investments, contributions, benefit payments, claims,
post-retirement benefit obligation, asset transfers, plan mergers, plan spin
offs, annuity buyouts, and ERISA compliance. Corey has led and performed
financial statement audits for various industries, with a variety of Employee
Benefit Plans including Non-Section 103(a)(3)(C) audits and ERISA Section
103(a)(3)(C) audits of 401(k), 403(b), defined benefit plans and health and
welfare plans.
LARA G. STANTON, CPA Principal, Employee Benefit
Plans Lara Stanton, CPA, is a principal in audit and assurance services with
over 30 years of experience. Lara is a valued resource to her clients, having
extensive expertise in employee benefit plans and SOC examinations. Her
experience includes serving as a principal on audits, performing quality control
inspections and reviews of employee benefit plan audit files, and evaluating SOC
reports for audit teams. She also currently serves as the teams' QC liasion.
Lara is a frequent speaker and presenter at accounting and employee benefit plan
conferences. SERVICE AREAS •Service Organization Control (SOC) Examinations
•Employee Benefit Plans AFFILIATIONS •American Institute of Certified Public
Accountants (AICPA) •Illinois CPA Society EDUCATION •Bachelor of Arts in
Accounting, Aurora University •Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, University of
Georgia LOCATION: SIKICH CPA LLC - NAPERVILLE OFFICE 1415 W. Diehl Road Suite
400 Naperville, IL 60563 P: 331.702.8970
lara.stanton@sikich.com
AMBER WILLIAMS CPA Senior Manager Amber Williams,
CPA, is an audit director with nearly 18 years of experience in public
accounting. Throughout her career Amber has brought value to her clients by
performing employee benefit plan audits as well as financial statement audits,
reviews and compilations for a variety of industries. She now works exclusively
in the employee benefit plan audit practice at Sikich, working closely with
clients to provide ongoing technical accounting research and consulting. Amber
also regularly leads internal training and assists with practice operations. In
her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and daughter and
getting out on the golf course. SERVICE AREAS • Employee Benefit Plans
AFFILIATIONS • American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) •
Illinois CPA Society EDUCATION • BS of Accountancy and Finance Degree, Illinois
State University.
John Manilla is a Partner in Crowe’s Public Sector
Consulting practice, where he leads artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and
enablement. With over 17 years of experience across the financial services and
public sector industries, John brings deep expertise in regulatory compliance
and has successfully supported a wide range of complex client engagements. He is
both a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a Project Management Professional
(PMP) and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from Grand Valley
State University. John is a recognized speaker on the topic of generative AI and
has delivered presentations for national organizations including NASACT, NGMA,
and The IIA.
Rachael Bowman, CPA , Director Audit Services, Employee
Benefit Plans Rachael is an audit director at Forvis Mazars, with an employee
benefit plan focus. She has more than 18 years of experience working solely on
employee benefit plan audits. She has developed and delivered training for two
top ten firms as well as state societies and clients. She began working at the
firm in August of 2022, as director of the benefit plan practice in the Chicago
practice. She has worked on large clients with billion-dollar plans with
SEC/11-K filers, government entity plans not governed by ERISA and clients with multiple pension plans.
Mr. Greetis is a partner in the Employee Benefits &
Executive Compensation Department of Seyfarth Shaw LLP. Seyfarth Shaw LLP
maintains one of the nation’s largest groups of attorneys practicing Employee
Benefits & Executive Compensation Law. Adam has a broad-based, comprehensive
practice which involves all areas of employee benefits law, including retirement
plan, health and welfare plan and executive compensation
matters.
Bob Rietz is a Pension Actuary with over 29 years of
actuarial consulting experience. Bob has worked with clients within the public
and private sectors, as well as with multiemployer plans, performing actuarial
valuations of pension and post-retirement medical plans for plan funding and
financial statement reporting purposes. In addition, Bob has provided his
clients detailed projections of expected costs, developed plan funding policies
and strategies, determined benefit calculation amounts payable to retirees,
presented valuation results at pension board and city council meetings, and
presented various actuarial topics at local and national pension conferences. In
addition, Bob has provided actuarial specialist support to audit teams
performing benefit plan and financial statement audits.
Bob is an Enrolled Actuary, a Fellow of the Conference of Consulting
Actuaries, a Member of the American Society of Enrolled Actuaries, and a Member
of the American Academy of Actuaries. Bob also currently is a member of the
Illinois CPA Society Employee Benefits Content Advisory Group.
Experience As the Practice Leader for Grant Thornton’s National Employee
Benefit Plan Practice, Jason is responsible for providing services to some of
Grant Thornton’s most complex employee benefit plan engagements across the U.S.
Jason has extensive experience in dealing with reporting and disclosure issues
related to benefit plans. Jason serves as a technical resource for his firm on
employee benefit plan auditing, accounting and reporting issues. Jason is also
responsible for delivering training to audit team members to support the overall
National Employee Benefit Plan Practice. Jason is actively involved with the
ongoing process of updating Grant Thornton’s employee benefit plan audit
methodology, innovation tools and practice aids, and serves as a program leader
and developer for the firm’s nationally developed employee benefit plan training
programs. Prior to joining Grant Thornton in 2019, Jason was a Director within a
Big Four accounting firm’s National Employee Benefit Plan and Asset and Wealth
Management Practices. Jason has over 20 years of experience leading large
employee benefit plan engagement teams. He also has experience performing both
peer reviews and internal inspections for other employee benefit plan
engagements.
Professional qualifications and memberships
• Certified Public Accountant, Massachusetts
• Chair, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Employee Benefit
Plan Expert Panel
• Member, Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants
• Member, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Education
Jason received a Bachelor of Science Degree with a concentration in
Accounting from Bryant University (Summa Cum Laude) and leads Grant Thornton’s
recruiting initiative at Bryant University.