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SPOTLIGHT: Meet ERB StaffDale Goar: He Keeps IRIS in BloomThe Santa Fe NMERB office is a pleasant but ordinary stucco building, the kind you see everywhere in New Mexico. Pleasant, but scarcely a castle, yet one could still regard employee Dale Goar as a kind of wizard, one that can manage the complex technology that keeps our system-wide data management system, IRIS, humming along. |
 Dale Goar, Santa Fe office. |
If you haven’t given much thought to IRIS (Integrated Retirement Information System) which NMERB launched in 2006, that’s a good thing, because it reflects how smoothly Dale does his job as systems administrator for NMERB. Through IRIS, Dale provides a bounty of information for members. He is responsible for providing members with 1099s and member annual statements each year. This year, NMERB is adding a yearly retirement statement to all retirees. “With Phase 3, our IRIS web enablement, I will be responsible to see that the servers are up and running, and that both members and employers can access the NMERB web page,” Dale says. Dale also fulfills data requests from legislative and other government agencies among other responsibilities. “IRIS allows us to do improved statistics reports, it allows us to do better reports for managers,” he says. The quality of data for these documents has really improved with IRIS, he adds. Dale is responsible for some of the tremendous technological changes at NMERB over the past 15 years and remembers well the kind of early equipment organizations had available then for data processing. Other technology advances are forthcoming for NMERB, Dale says. “This fiscal year, we’re going to upgrade our imaging system to the Filenet P8,” an ultra-secure electronic management storage system. As young as he is, Dale recalls his Western New Mexico University professors talking about the really old days, when data input required punch cards, and what happened when an accidental stumble sent an entire pack of them flying to the floor. Change is good. He enjoys his job with NMERB and likes to think about managing a department here one day. He’s thinking about getting his master’s degree in either information management or an MA in the arts with a core concentration in MIS. Either way, he dreams of ventures outside of work too when the day comes. “I’d like to move to a cattle ranch one day,” he confides. He enjoys Gene Autry movies, and books set in the 1700s and 1800s. Fishing for walleye on Conchas Lake is a favorite pastime and he likes to hunt elk too. |
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If You Are a Married WomanIn preparing for retirement, married women face the very real possibility of spending part of their retirement years without the support of a husband – most likely through widowhood. The loss of a spouse can sometimes mean the loss or reduction of benefits that can place women in financial jeopardy. For that reason, women will need to focus on their financial resources as a single person as well as half of a couple. Consider what happens to your Social Security and to retirement benefits if your spouse dies or you divorce. Know what assets you can count on. Check Social Security benefit documents, retirement plan documents and wills. Remember that wills are important, but they may not provide the protection desired. Depending on the way assets are titled, or the terms of a will, the money women believe they can count on may not be passed to the surviving spouse. back to topTo learn more about NMERB go to our web siteYou can also find our printed newsletters online by clicking here New Mexico Educational Retirement Board (NMERB) |
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