USA Team

Dr. William Crist (Bill) is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at California State University, Stanislaus, USA, where he served as Professor of Economics from 1969 through his retirement in January, 2003.  He was Chair of the university\\\'s Department of Economics from 1986 to 1990. He also served the CSU as the University’s Corporate and Foreign Education Liaison from 2000 to 2003.  He has been Executive Vice President of Governance for Owners USA, Inc. since its inception.  He holds a Master’s Degree in Economics and Business and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Nebraska.

During his early academic career Dr. Crist was the founding President of the California Faculty Association, which is the exclusive collective bargaining representative of more that 30,000 university faculty members in California.  He served as President and Chairman of the CFA Board from 1976 to 1985.

Dr. Crist was an elected member of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) Board of Administration from 1987 to 2003.  He  served as President of CalPERS and Chairman of the Board from 1992 until his retirement from the Board in January, 2003. He served on every standing committee of the CalPERS Board during his tenure.  CalPERS is the largest public pension fund in the United States with more than 1.5 million members and more than $230 billion in assets.

Bill has served as Co-Chair of the U.S. Council of Institutional Investors, and as a member of the Council\\\'s Executive Committee.  He was a founding member of the International Corporate Governance Network and served as a member of the ICGN Board of Governors.  He earned international acclaim by receiving the 2003 Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance from the International Corporate Governance Network for his work in promoting good corporate governance world wide.  He presently is Chair of the ICGN Nominating Committee.

Bill was a member of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Pension Institute from 1997 to 2004 and served as Chairman from 1998 to 2003. He currently is on the PPI Advisory Board and on the Board of directors of the National Coalition on Health Care.  He serves on a number of other advisory boards in both the public and the private sector, and on corporate boards.  He has written numerous articles on pension fund investing, retirement system administration, corporate governance and public sector collective bargaining.