Harold Goff

Previously featured members:

Don Whatley

Rex Maddaford

.

Harold Was A Gentleman

As if by unspoken agreement, people who knew Harold Goff use the same words to describe the man who helped vastly improve retirement for educators in New Mexico.

“Harold was a gentleman, the finest person I ever worked for,” says Ken Davis, who as former executive director of ERB worked extensively with him.  “He was unflappable, he was steadfast and supported me in getting things done.”

Davis tells how Goff’s moral strength and his commitment to improving the financial security of retirees was key to getting better pension benefits.  “He was a powerful leader,” Davis says.  “There were powerful diverse factions and he kept them pulled together.  He got financial integrity into place. He established that the ERB board would set policy and goals, and then provide the executive director the power to carry out those directives,” says Davis. 

“In ’58, we had to go in and organize and push and struggle.  There was $3 million in the till then when we started, with about 10,000 retirees in the state.  This money had come in and we didn’t know who it belonged to.  He established a contributory accounting system and then in ’59, we expanded the investment authority of the ERB.”

Delman Shirley, who recently retired from the ERB board after 22 years, says that Harold was not only a gentleman, but always soft spoken, always willing to answer questions about anything in the past, always helpful.

“Harold would work six or seven days a week, even traveling in the early days to Santa Fe on Saturday or Sunday to personally write the benefit checks.  He was that kind of person,” Shirley relates. 

 “He was part of getting the original retirement act passed, which greatly improved the pension plan,” Shirley recalls.  “He also managed to get four ad hoc cost-of-living-adjustments made to help raise benefits for older retirees whose salaries had been extremely low.”

In some ways, he represents the early history of education in Albuquerque, says Russell Goff, one of his sons and current executive director of the New Mexico Association of Educational Retirees.  Harold Goff was ERB’s first chairman of the board, from 1957-77.  “He continued to work and advocate for retirement pensions.  That was his first love,” Goff explains.  He also served as state president and executive director of the New Mexico Association of Educational Retirees.

But he was so much more than a genteel man and able leader.  “He loved working with kids,” says Goff of his father’s 40 years as a teacher, guidance teacher and principal.  “He just liked to be a public servant.”