The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette featured the Cowden Associates succession plan in their "Business School" column:

Jere Cowden knew a lot of lives depended on his own.

He was in his 50s with about 25 employees and all of his clients depending on his good health. That's when he came up with the idea that he was going to slowly turn his business over to his vice presidents.

"It hits you pretty early that you need the ability for life to go on if something happens to you," he said.

Now Cowden Associates, a business consulting firm, has a secure future that is no longer dependent on the well-being of one man.

"We're in the business to plan for clients. You better plan for the business, too," he said.

Over the next decade, with an outside cap of 15 years, the men who work for Mr. Cowden, 61, of Leet, will become the owners of the firm. As Elliot N. Dinkin, 48, of Squirrel Hill, and Vincent G. Wolf, 40, of Moon, the two executive vice presidents at Cowden, slowly take over, Mr. Cowden will slowly have less to do.

Read the whole article at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

An update to a retiree health care case we featured last year: on March 24, 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a 2007 federal appeals court ruling, upholding a final rule from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that allows an employer to coordinate retiree health benefits with Medicare or a similar state health benefits program without being subject to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The effect of the ruling is that employers are allowed to provide a two-tier system of retiree heath care coverage, with younger retirees receiving richer benefits than Medicare-eligible retirees. The final ruling ends an eight year court battle, often referred to as the "Erie County" case.