Valerie Lopez-Zinzer, A.S.A

Summary

I graduated with a BS in mathematics with a strong core of actuarial science courses. Actuarial science is just one of the many exciting applications of mathematics. I currently work for Watson Wyatt, an international consulting firm. My responsibility is in pension consulting, although many other types of benefits consulting are within the realm of any large Human Resources consulting firm's capabilities. Pension consulting involves mathematics from start to finish. After choosing Watson Wyatt as consultants, a client entrusts us with establishing and administering its pension plans. We receive client data, and when I first started in this field my job was to make sure that data are reasonable and accurate. The reasoning skills taught in math classes that enabled me to have a hunch that an answer was right or wrong are precisely the ones that guide me now in analyzing a client's data.

The next step is our actual valuation process. In order to value a pension plan, we determine that an employee has reached a certain age, has a number of working years of service, and has an earning history with the company. This basic information is used to calculate the benefit this employee would earn if he or she retired at the time of the valuation process. But, since the person is not retiring today and probably may retire at age 65, statistics and probabilities enter into the equation.