CalPERS board president announces resignation after cancer diagnosis

CalPERS Board of Administration President Henry Jones is resigning from the board Friday to focus on his recovery from cancer, he told the board over the weekend.

Jones told the California Public Employees’ Retirement System board in a Sunday resignation letter that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in September. He said a surgery was largely successful but that he is not entirely cancer-free.

“I have decided, after much consideration and in consultation with my doctor over the past weeks, to limit the statewide and international activities in which I am involved so that I may focus on a complete recovery,” he said in the letter.

With Jones’s resignation, Vice President Theresa Taylor will assume leadership of the board, which oversees the state agency responsible for the public pensions of about 2.1 million people.

Jones was chief financial officer of the Los Angeles Unified School District until 1998, when he retired. He was elected by CalPERS retirees to represent them on the 13-member CalPERS board in 2008.

He began his fourth four-year term in 2020 after defeating challenger J.J. Jelincic in a 2019 election. He’s in his second term as president, a position his fellow board members selected him for. He is the board’s only Black member and its first Black president.

In his resignation letter, Jones noted the pension system’s investment fund had grown from $179 billion following the Great Recession to a recent high of $500 billion. The fund was valued at about $493 billion as of Jan. 14.

Jones’ resignation will leave three seats empty on the board, after insurance industry representative Stacie Olivares resigned Jan. 7 to pursue other opportunities and Jason Perez resigned in June 2021.

Olivares was a governor’s appointee on the board. Perez represented public agencies in an elected position. A special election for the seat formerly held by Perez, a Corona police officer, will be held by mail from April 15 to May 16.

New board member Jose Luis Pacheco joined the board Jan. 16 after defeating former member Margaret Brown.

This story was originally published January 18, 2022 at 11:35 AM.