Newly Elected Feckner Urges Fight Over CalPERS Overhaul

Rob Feckner didn’t waste much time Wednesday basking in the applause that greeted his unanimous election as president of the $183-billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

Within minutes of the vote, the bearded, burly 47-year-old Feckner had presided over the selection of his vice president, read a statement of his beliefs and launched a businesslike discussion of the No. 1 item on the day’s agenda: voting to oppose Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign to overhaul the state’s pension system for state and local workers.

It was the type of no-nonsense performance his CalPERS colleagues have learned to expect from a man whose day job is fixing windows for the Napa Unified School District in Napa, Calif. And it contrasted with the histrionics that at times marked the rein of Sean Harrigan, whose ouster in December sparked a debate over the future of the nation’s largest public pension fund and the motivations of its leadership.

Feckner in his first remarks as president said he would employ “a quieter, less flashy style” during his one-year term as head of the 13-person board. He promised to be long on substance and limit his flamboyance to eye-catching shirts and ties, such as the matching peach combo he wore Wednesday with a conservative, dark suit.

“I want to be known not as someone who is out all over America and beyond with my fingers in every pot,” said Feckner in a not-so-veiled reference to Harrigan, a Southern California supermarket union official who enjoyed speaking to shareholder groups and appearing on talk shows during junkets around the country and overseas.

Although the board’s approach to corporate governance would “become more laser-focused and less scattershot” under his leadership, Feckner said, he wanted to make it “abundantly clear to corporate wrongdoers who are hurting shareholder value that we will not retreat from our fiduciary duty to protect our shareholder interests when called for.”

He vowed to continue initiatives to limit excessive executive pay, control soaring healthcare costs and, above all, oppose efforts by Schwarzenegger and his Republican allies in the Legislature and business to dramatically change how public pensions are paid.

“Our biggest challenge today relates to the very survival of CalPERS,” Feckner said.

The governor claims that California can’t afford to maintain its current pension system. Feckner counters that the fund could lose billions of dollars if it converted from a traditional benefit program that provides retirees with lifelong monthly checks to a 401(k)-type savings plan. The governor plans to take his overhaul proposal to the voters in a fall initiative if lawmakers don’t take action by early March.

Feckner encouraged colleagues to campaign against the governor’s likely initiative but not on official CalPERS time.

“As members of this board, we will do what is required of us to respond to the challenges we face as a system,” he said.

Almost on cue, the board and Feckner voted 9 to 3 to oppose the Schwarzenegger pension plan; the dissent came from the governor’s three direct and indirect appointees. The lopsided vote shows that “CalPERS wants to deal themselves out of the debate” on pensions, said Schwarzenegger spokesman H.D. Palmer.

For her part, state Republican Party spokeswoman Karen Hanretty said she saw little difference between the high-profile Harrigan and low-key Feckner when it came to pushing a pro-labor-union agenda. “One’s quiet, and one’s not,” she said, “but they have the same agenda.”

Those kind of brickbats aren’t likely to faze Feckner. He said his grandfather taught him to find his “quiet center” when he was growing up in the bucolic Napa Valley in the 1960s.

Feckner never left that happy wine-country home. These days he finds refuge with his wife, gardening, walking through the redwoods and tending the odd grapevine on the 3.5-acre ranch near Yountville that he inherited from his grandfather.

Though Feckner enjoys a high net worth -- thanks to sky-high property values -- his lifestyle, financed by a $51,000-a-year school district salary, remains modest. Getting rich or finding a powerful job has never been a priority, he said.

He graduated high school, got a two-year degree in business and finance from the local community college and signed up for a career with the same school system he attended. He started out as a school bus driver, moved on to be a teacher’s assistant for special-needs children and settled in as a journeyman glazier, charged with installing and fixing windows and cutting mirrors and desktops at the district’s 32 buildings.

Working a straightforward job -- from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. -- “allows me to do what I do with my life,” Feckner said.

What Feckner does appears to be quite a lot. In addition to his part-time avocation helping to run the world’s most influential pension fund, Feckner sits on the board of the 220,000-member California School Employees Assn. union. In the past, he served 17 years as a local and later statewide president. Beyond that, Feckner has held every office, twice, and reached the top rank of worshipful master, second degree, in the Masonic Lodge; volunteered to mentor youth; taught Sunday school; played in a softball league; and regularly hits the golf links.

Though his and CalPERS’ investment decisions are closely watched on Wall Street, Feckner has never visited New York. “It’s not something I have to do myself,” he said.

Feckner’s simple, stay-at-home lifestyle doesn’t mean he’s “an unsophisticated country boy,” said David Low, the Sacramento lobbyist for the school employees union.

“It would be dangerous to equate the fact that Rob is a glazier with he being unsophisticated,” Low said. “It would be like saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger is unsophisticated because he was a bodybuilder.”