When I received the Society of Actuaries Distinguished Service Award in 2006, the inscription concluded with the words "And for bringing his sense of humor and his intelligence to everything he does". I truly believe that having a sense of humor, and using it, is very important in doing your career's work. I have always tried to inject some humor in presentations that I do at actuarial meetings. (If anything, I am "notorious" for doing so.) I have fun and the audience has fun. It doesn't take away from the learning process. I think it even enhances it.

Tonya Manning (who is running for SOA Vice President this year) and I have done sessions at every Enrolled Actuaries Meeting since 2002. We enjoy speaking with one another. We inject humor into the presentations and the sessions get good ratings. Who says that presentations on technical subjects have to be dull?

Then there's ERISA Jeopardy. I have done this session 15 times (14 times at the Annual Meeting of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries). Talk about having fun! This is really the fine points of the law in an unusual format. Every year there is at least one comment, "If this gets Core credit, why do we bother?" My reaction is, "then why did you come to this session?" I've always tried to give the session a subtitle (other than ERISA Jeopardy XX). Over the years we've done Survivor Tucson, Laws and Orders, Desperate Actuaries, CSI: San Antonio, Actuarial Smackdown, Actuarial Idol, Actuarial Fear Factor, ERISA Jeopardy Strikes Back, and The Revenge of ERISA Jeopardy.

I am also guilty of starting the trend of "clever" titles of sessions at meetings. The whole CCA Annual Meeting committee seems to embrace this now. One of the original sessions when I was on the SOA Program Committee in the last century was a session in Las Vegas on funding retiree health benefits – VEBA Las Vegas! Over the years we've seen "Another One Bites the Dust", "Frozen Plans on Ice", "'Only the Good Die Young'- Helping DC Plan Participants Manage Longevity Risk", "Oops, I Did It Again", "Polly Want a QACA?", and "Go to Health". These aren't all mine, but the committee sure got into the spirit of things.

So if you vote for me, I promise that things won't be dull. I will do my best, and I won't lose my sense of humor.