PACIFIC BASIN ECONOMIC COUNCIL
UNITED STATES MEMBER COMMITTEE | STAFF

Leadership & Staff Gary G. Benanav PBEC U.S. Chairman Gary G. Benanav is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of New York Life International, Inc., the international arm of New York Life Insurance Company, with operations in Asia and Latin America. He is also Executive Vice President of New York Life Insurance Company and serves on that company's Executive Management Committee. Mr. Benanav received his MBA degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and his JD degree from Columbia Law School. He was previously associated with the New York law firm of Shea & Gould, and he joined Aetna in 1972 as a member of its Law Department. Benanav served in various roles with that company from 1972 until 1996. In August 1989, he was appointed President of Aetna International, responsible for Aetna's insurance and financial service businesses outside the United States. In April 1992, he was promoted to Group Executive, with additional responsibility for Aetna's domestic life insurance and asset accumulation businesses, and in December 1994 became the Chief Executive of its property/casualty operations. Benanav has lectured frequently at business seminars on various investment and other financial topics. He was a founding member, president and trustee of the American College of Investment Counsel. He was also a member of the American Council on Life Insurance and its Subcommittee on Federal Bankruptcy Legislation. He served on Governor Carey's New York Executive Advisory Commission on Insurance Industry Regulatory Reform (known as the Heimann Commission), where he was a strong advocate for deregulation of insurance company activities. Benanav served as director and the Vice Chairman of Capitol Housing Corporation and a member for the Executive Committee of the Greater Hartford Chamber of Commerce. He is currently a director of executive Risk, Inc., and the Barnes Group, both listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Benanav resides in West Hartford, Connecticut with his wife, Ruth. He has two sons and one daughter. Mark Borthwick Acting Director General Mark Borthwick is the Acting Director General of PBEC-US and Director of the United States Asia Pacific Council. He is also the U.S. Executive Director of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC). A 1968 honors graduate of Northwestern University, he served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. After receiving a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Iowa in 1977, he joined the Sociology faculty at Iowa State University. This was followed by a postdoctoral assignment on science and technology policy at Duke University, working concurrently with the Office of Governor Jim Hunt. In 1979 he moved to Washington DC as a AAAS Congressional Science & Engineering Fellow and worked on the staff of the House Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs. He became the US Executive Director of PECC upon the creation and inauguration of the US National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation by the President and Secretary of State in 1984. He is the author and editor of Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia, (Second Edition, 1998, Westview) a companion textbook to the 10-hour award-winning public television series of that name. Amb. William Bodde Special Advisor An advisor to a Fortune 500 companies and a private consultant, Ambassador Bodde has lectured widely in Europe, Asia and the United States and is the author of numerous articles on foreign policy and international trade. He is president of WBJ ASSOCIATES and a member of the Board of GEE-21, a think tank concerned with international energy and environment issues. He also serves on the board of the Washington Institute for Foreign Affairs. He is a visiting Professor at the University of Hawaii's Japan and China focused MBA programs. As a United States Foreign Service Officer (1962-1994), Ambassador Bodde was a senior policy maker in the U.S. Department of State and a senior advisor to Presidents Reagan and Bush. His diplomatic career spanned three geographic areas of specialization: Europe, Asia, and the Pacific islands, where he served as American Ambassador to a number of Pacific Islands nations. In 1993 he was sent to Singapore to set up the APEC Secretariat and became the first Executive Director of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). He is the author of The View From The 19th Floor: Reflections of the First APEC Executive Director published by the Institute of Southeast Asia Studies in Singapore. He received a BA in History and Political Science from Hofstra College and an MPPA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Beverly Mather Boncek, Program Assistant David Hotz, Administrative Assistant