ABA Announces Details of New CEO Contract

Last month, when ABA President Gayle Shanks announced the appointment of Oren J. Teicher as ABA's new CEO, she noted that the details surrounding the new CEO contract would be made available to the membership when they were finalized. This week, Shanks and ABA Vice President Michael Tucker are reporting to members the details concerning Teicher's contract.

The ABA Board has entered into a five-year contract with Teicher, and the contract begins on June 1, 2009. His annual salary will be $275,000. The contract also provides for Teicher to be eligible for the ABA employee benefit package. (Given current economic conditions, ABA has temporarily suspended SEP and 401(K) contributions.)

President Shanks and Vice President Tucker said that the new CEO contract reflects current economic realities and that it puts the chief executive's compensation in the appropriate range for associations the size of ABA. Regarding the new contract, they said, "We are delighted to have fashioned with Oren -- the Board's unanimous choice for the job -- an agreement that will serve ABA very well in the years to come and one with which he is pleased."

The call for a full disclosure of the particulars of the CEO contract was included in the recommendations made several years ago by the Governance Review Committee to the Board. Shanks and Tucker added, "The search committee and the Board wanted to be certain that the entire process of selecting a new CEO, and the terms of the contract, would be as open and as transparent as possible. We believe we have fully lived up to that commitment."