John Faustgen*

John Faustgen is the Benefits Manager of Planning and Strategy with Land O Lakes, Inc. (a Twelve Billion Dollar Diversified Food and Agriculture Company). In this role, John provides internal consulting and strategic direction to help best deliver high quality, value-based employee benefit plans.John’s work responsibilities include projecting and setting cost for over 90 million in employee benefit spend annually and providing benefit budget estimates to the business units (consisting of 90 plus benefit plans, covering over 20,000 benefit plan members at over 200 locations nationwide). John is also highly involved with vendor and union benefits negotiations. Plus managing the retiree and international medical plans

 

John has more than twenty years of employee benefits experience. Before joining Land O'Lakes in 2002 John worked in a wide range of positions, including Insurance Underwriter, Employee Benefits Consultant, Insurance Broker and NYSE Broker. By working at so many different sides of employee benefit programs. John has developed an excellent ability to anticipate obstacles, achieve targeted needs and provided superior values for the benefit spend. John’s planning and strategy guidance has led to documented cost avoidance of over 40 million dollars over a six year period while maintaining high employee satisfaction and improving employee engagement in their healthcare.  John was a recipient of the Land O'Lakes 2009 Annual President Award.

 

A big believer in training and education, John is a longtime member of the International Society of Employee Benefits Specialist. John has earned the Certified Employee Benefits Specialist (CEBS) professional designation and currently holds Fellowship status. John has also completed Global Benefits Management certification training and has a Qualified Pension Administrator (QPA) professional designation through the American Society of Pension Actuaries. John earned his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Minnesota.