BISMARCK, N.D. – Gov. Doug Burgum today appointed Mark Dosch of Bismarck to chair the Board of Trustees for the North Dakota Public Employees Retirement System (NDPERS), while also recognizing outgoing chairman Jon Strinden for his service and congratulating NDPERS Executive Director Sparb Collins on his upcoming retirement.
Dosch’s appointment is effective immediately. He replaces Strinden, who served on the Board of Trustees for 16 years before resigning as chairman after the board’s May 18 meeting.
A Bismarck native, Dosch is the owner and president of Expressway Inn & Suites in Bismarck. He served in the North Dakota House of Representatives from 2001 to 2016, including as a member of the House Appropriations Committee, and on the advisory board of Job Service North Dakota.
Dosch earned a bachelor’s degree in banking and finance from the University of North Dakota in 1982 and graduated from the Dakota School of Banking in 1986. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Grand Forks-based Edgewood Real Estate Investment Trust, which provides multi-family and senior housing across seven Midwest states. He and his wife of 30 years, Deb, have three children and three grandchildren.
“Our employees are our most valuable resource in state government, and Mark Dosch has the experience and leadership skills necessary to ensure a strong retirement and benefits system that will help us recruit and retain the talent needed to reinvent government and provide North Dakotans with the highest levels of service,” Burgum said.
“I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead, to make sure that the state retirement and health insurance systems are best positioned to assure continued benefits to those who are retired from service to our state, and at the same time reflect and adapt to changes in the retirement and health systems of today to provide for sustainable and affordable benefits in the future,” Dosch said.
Burgum expressed his deep gratitude for Strinden’s many years of service on the board. He also expressed his appreciation for Collins’ 28 years as NDPERS executive director. Collins announced his retirement in May, and his last day with NDPERS will be Oct. 31.
Sharon Schiermeister, chief operating officer of NDPERS, will act as interim director during the board’s search for a new executive director. The job opening announcement will be shared in the coming weeks.
The nine-member NDPERS Board of Trustees consists of the chairman appointed by the governor, one member appointed by the Attorney General’s staff, an appointee of the State Health Officer, three members elected by the active membership of NDPERS, one member elected by the retired public employees, and two members appointed by legislative management. For more information, visit https://ndpers.nd.gov/
NDPERS has about 45,000 members enrolled in the retirement plans and about 68,000 covered individuals in the group health insurance plan, with some crossover between the two groups.