Coffman Engineers, Inc.

Coffman Engineers, Inc., a multidiscipline engineering services firm headquartered in Seattle, Washington, has approximately $169 million of plan assets in its two 401(k) plans. Ninety-six percent of eligible employees participate and defer an average 10% of their earnings.

The plan lineup uses what Anchorage, Alaska-based Ben Momblow describes as a “tiered” approach. According to Momblow, who is principal, project management, and acting 401(k) committee chair, the tiers are an internal clarification, or division, of the types of investments the plan offers. The Tier 1 default is the Vanguard family of target-date funds, favored by the younger demographic. Tier 2 is passive investment funds, primarily mutual funds. Actively managed funds comprise Tier 3, including aggressive, equity, balanced, bond, real asset and stable value funds. Tier 4 is the retirement fund, which focuses on capital preservation and decumulation.

“Another way I describe them to people is four buckets,” Momblow says. “That allows people to make sense of the options we provide within the plan and categorize them. We take care to explain to them that one tier is not necessarily better than another, and employees and participants are allowed to select from multiple tiers.”

Plans typically offer new employees some sort of plan orientation, but Coffman Engineers takes a highly personalized approach. The firm has developed a presentation to explain how the plan operates, and new participants may spend an hour or so with a committee member to review the plan and ask questions.

Plan committee members are usually longer-tenured executives in the firm’s local offices, and the orientation allows new employees and managers to get to know each other better.

“I think part of it is just a legacy from when we were smaller,” Momblow says. “As a leader in the Anchorage office, I still use that as a tool. I get to onboard every new employee in the office, make a personal connection, talk about the 401(k) and help answer any questions or help them navigate the intricacies of the plan.”

The personalized approach has been successful, and participants appreciate it, Momblow reports. He says it’s an important feature of the firm’s plan, and committee members use Microsoft Teams for virtual sessions to help distribute the workload. “We hold them as in-person meetings, but also via Teams,” Momblow explains. “And so, I’ll do an orientation every two or three weeks, and I might have half a dozen employees from all over the country sitting in that orientation. It’s great.”

The plan also includes a financial wellness component. Coffman Engineers engaged the Your Money Line service four years ago to provide participants with personalized financial advice. Participants contact Your Money Line, and the service assigns them a personal certified financial planner to work with going forward, Momblow says.

Participants may continue with the assigned CFP or request another, Momblow says. He estimates that about 15% of participants use the service regularly.

—Ed McCarthy