CCA Member Spotlight

Consulting actuaries don’t sit on the sidelines. We’re front and center – the movers and shakers – unafraid of using our powers of intellect and charm to advise and conquer. We are individuals with extraordinary stories to tell. This page will feature the stories of CCA members - who they are and what they do both inside and out of the actuarial world.

Kenny Herbold


Meet CCA Member: Kenny Herbold

Meet your fellow member, Kenny Herbold. Kenny is a dedicated volunteer who is grateful for the relationships he has developed with other members over the years. He enjoys life, pushes beyond his comfort zone and gives this advice to young actuaries: don't stop learning.

Name: Kenny Herbold | Location: Baton Rouge, LA | Employer: Louisiana Legislative Auditor | Area of Practice: Pension

I read Isaac Asimov's Foundation series as a kid and thought it would be really cool to predict the future with math. Then I heard about the profession because my high school Calculus teacher's wife was an actuary at USAA. But I didn't really start down the path until the Engineering department at Texas A&M University invited me to pursue my studies outside their department. That prompted me to start taking actuarial exams while pursuing my bachelors in Accounting and masters in Finance as a back-up, in case I found actuarial work too boring. I am still here 20+ years later so I guess I haven't gotten too bored, yet.

The CCA is one of the few, if not the only, U.S. actuarial organization where members choose to join not because they need to join for work, but because of the excellent educational offerings.

I am a big fan of Tangle (readtangle.com). It is a political newsletter that "summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day" then the author provides his take on the subject.

I am grateful for the relationships I have been able to develop as part of the CCA, particularly from volunteering. I have gotten to meet, and learn from, a number of successful practitioners that I would never have known otherwise.

I attended Texas A&M University. I originally pursued computer and electrical engineering. Suffice it to say, thermodynamics and I were not the best of friends. That, plus a few other misadventures, ultimately led me to graduating with a BBA in Accounting and M.S. in Finance.

It is pretty simple. Are you happy and are you enjoying yourself? No one should expect to like every aspect of what they do for a living or every aspect of their life, there is always tedium and frustration. But no matter what you have "accomplished", IMO, if you aren’t enjoying the life you are living I don’t know how you can honestly say you have been successful.

Two things.

  1. Don’t be afraid of change or of the unknown. We grow by pushing the limits of what we think we can do. And we push those limits by doing things we think, but don’t know we can do.
  2. Don’t stop learning. I am not just referring to work-related technical skills. There is room to learn, and grow, in virtually every aspect of your life. And it should never stop.

First and foremost, I am an educator. Working in public pensions, I am frequently working with people who know very little about defined benefit pensions in general, much less the technical aspects of our work. My job is to distill large and complex issues into understandable explanations so they can make the best decisions possible that potentially affect tens of thousands of people.

Yes. I have never really learned reverse polish notation, but I have an oddly strong attachment to my HP 12C. So much so that it continues to travel with me from my very first role, despite rarely seeing the light of day.

It wasn't the first time I learned this lesson, but I was definitely reminded that we don't control nearly as much as we think we do, so it is best to focus on what we can control.

Probably a financial advisor. I enjoy helping people and I like math and finance. Public pensions is one place where I get to do both. Being a financial advisor feels like another.

I left the Houston office of Arthur Andersen right before, but unrelated to, Ken Lay resigning from Enron and a couple months before the Enron trials began and Arthur Andersen ultimately disappeared. I also know people who were deposed for the trial.

[Have a question for Kenny? Send the CCA an email at conference@ccactuaries.org containing your contact information, and we’ll get the message to them on your behalf.]

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