Mitch McConnell.. The Dough bag..

Want to run an agency? It helps to know Mitch McConnell

Trump's nominee to run pension agency has a thin resume.

By IAN KULLGREN

The Trump administration, staring down a $54 billion pension crisis, is placing its faith in a man who is a stranger to most of Washington but for one big connection: His brother-in-law is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his sister-in-law is Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

Mitch McConnell

Gordon Hartogensis has little professional paper trail, and has largely just managed his family’s sprawling investment portfolio after striking gold in a '90s startup and retiring by the time he was 29. But he is expected to gain Senate confirmation before the end of the year to run the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the troubled government backstop for people whose pension plans have become insolvent.

Hartogensis, 48, who’s married to Chao’s sister, will oversee an agency with nearly 1,000 employees that manages $100 billion in assets and handed out $5.8 billion to more than 861,000 retirees in 2018. He’ll also have to deal with lawmakers as they contemplate a bailout plan that can avert a shortfall of tens of billions of dollars in the corporation’s cash reserves.

Hartogensis’ low public profile and his lack of government and management experience sets him apart from previous occupants of the job, who have typically worked in politics and at federal agencies such as the Treasury Department and the OMB before taking over. The nomination has drawn criticism for that reason.

Retirees “need and expect leadership and expertise from the director position [and] I don’t believe that Mr. Hartogensis has the qualifications necessary to provide that leadership,” said Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who voted against Hartogensis’ nomination in the Finance Committee, in a written statement.

The in-law connection “may be why they’re appointing him, as a family favor,” conceded George Hartogensis, his cousin. “The administration is not known for great people, but … he has a lot of experience in business and he’s smart.”

The cousin, who describes himself as politically liberal, added: “It’s like if your family member is a made man in the Mafia. I mean, I’m proud of him, but they’re still a band of criminals.”

Exactly how Hartogensis’ name surfaced for the job isn’t publicly known. President Donald Trump nominated him in May, ousting Tom Reeder, an Obama appointee whose five-year term was not set to expire until October 2020. The White House did not to respond to requests for comment on the decision to replace Reeder.

Hartogensis’ supporters note that he’s conversant with the investment world, having founded and then sold two tech companies before retiring in 2011. His family connections could prove advantageous as Congress weighs a $3 billion-a-year pension bailout from the Treasury Department, said Joshua Gotbaum, who ran the PBGC before Reeder.

Funded entirely through premiums paid by pension funds, the PBGC will be bankrupted if even one of a few very large and insolvent funds, mostly in Rust Belt industries where retirees outnumber employees, goes belly-up. That prospect has lawmakers scrambling to come up with a fix as the corporation faces a $54 billion gap in its reserves.

“Given this is a guy who has started companies from zilch, I think he has the energy and the smarts to do it,” said Gotbaum, who ran the PBGC from 2010 to 2014. “I don’t know what the relationship is between him and his brother-in-law,” he said, “but hopefully it’s one that could help.”

As very wealthy people go, Hartogensis leaves a small footprint. Despite having a Twitter profile, he’s never tweeted. The account, formed under his name in 2009, follows a handful of celebrities, including Justin Bieber and Lindsay Lohan, and one politician: Donald Trump.

“I don’t even know much about him, honestly,” said Rachel Greszler, a seasoned pension analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

People close to Hartogensis describe him as intelligent but introverted, rarely contributing more than a few words in conversations. He did not respond to numerous requests to be interviewed for this article, and his mother, who lives in a Washington suburb, shooed a reporter off her porch last week.

“He’s a really private guy,” explained his sister, Martine Hartogensis. “He doesn’t tend to publicize things very much.”

Chao did not describe recent qualifications when the Washington Post asked her about Hartogensis shortly after his nomination last spring. She did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

“Secretary Acosta made the selection and hired him, and I think he's an excellent choice,” Chao said, referring to Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta. Her brother-in-law, she said, was “quite accomplished, he's quite an entrepreneur. He went to Stanford, was valedictorian of his high school class, and he retired before the age of 29 because of his great success."

Most of Hartogensis’ wealth comes from Petrolsoft, a niche software company that he and two friends started in 1989, when they were still undergraduates at Stanford. The company, which helped oil and gas companies forecast consumer demand, was valued at nearly $60 million when it was purchased by Aspen Technology in 2000, according to news coverage at the time.

Hartogensis moved to New York after selling Petrolsoft, and in 2004 he started another software company called Auric Technology, state records show, before selling it to a Mexico City-based company in 2011.

“He’s very, very smart,” said Rita Hartogensis, Gordon Hartogensis’ aunt by marriage. “He once said he wanted to be the next Bill Gates.”

The family trust that Hartogensis has been managing since 2011 includes “private equity, venture capital, and real estate assets,” according to his LinkedIn profile. Among the ventures it’s invested in are “immunotherapy, artificial intelligence, cryptography, streaming video, financial services, and marketing automation.” Hartogensis has also “acted as an advisor to several angel portfolio companies.”

Hartogensis’ financial disclosure form — nearly 60 pages in total — lists investments in hundreds of businesses, from Amazon to Nike. In a letter to ethics officials, Hartogensis said he would divest from only a dozen companies, a decision that’s raised eyebrows among critics.

Only two Democratic senators opposed Hartogensis in the Finance Committee, after a confirmation hearing that most of the committee didn't attend, scheduled on the same day that controversial hearings to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court were absorbing all of Washington’s attention. Ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said he was impressed by the technical knowledge Hartogensis demonstrated of the PBGC during his confirmation hearing in September — a rare compliment for a Trump appointee.

“Frankly, that has not always been the case with Trump nominees,” Wyden said ahead of the vote last month.

Hartogensis has given brother-in-law McConnell $11,600 in political contributions since 2001, according to a database compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. He’s also given $50,000 to the Kentucky GOP since 2007, and occasionally he’s donated to Republican Senate candidates in key races.

Registered as a Republican in Connecticut, Hartogensis occasionally ventures into liberal circles. In May, one of his daughters was confirmed through an affiliate United Church of Christ, a left-leaning branch of Protestantism that supports abortion. Hartogensis and his wife provided cake to the congregation, according to a church bulletin, though it’s unclear whether he is also a member. The church did not return calls seeking comment.

“He is obviously conservative, but he’s not afraid to speak up to do the right thing,” said his sister, Martine Hartogensis. “Whether that aligns with the current political climate, I don’t know.”