Seniors & Retirees

National Democratic Seniors Coordinating Council Officers

Steve Regenstreif

Steve Regenstreif is Director of the Retiree Department of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). AFSCME, the nation's largest public employee union began organizing public sector retirees in 1980 and has the distinction of being the fastest growing retiree organization in the labor movement. It is also the largest organization of public sector retirees in America. Since 1984 its membership has grown from 25,000 dues-paying members to now almost 240,000 retirees in over 250 state and local groups. The AFSCME Retirees have added better than 10,000 new members each year for the last 15 years.

Mr. Regenstreif began his career with AFSCME in 1973 and has held various positions including, Assistant to the Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy, Assistant Director of the AFSCME Organizing Department and an assistant to the late national President, Jerry Wurf. From 1978 to 1981, he worked in New York and played a leading role in the permanent affiliation of the 220,000 member Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) which brought the AFSCME membership to the one million mark. He has been Director of the national Retiree Program since 1983. In addition, Mr. Regenstreif serves on the boards of the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations (LCAO) and the Alliance For Retired Americans. He was also a delegate to both the 1995 and 2005 White House Conferences on Aging, the 1998 White House Conference on Social Security and the 2006 National Summit on Retirement Savings. He also serves as chair of the National Democratic Seniors Coordinating Council. As a result of holding this position, he is a member of the Democratic National Committee.

Maria Cordone

Maria Cordone is a 41-year member of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM&AW), an organization with over 300,000 retired members. Director of the Community Services/EAP/Retirees Department since 1997, she provided training and growth opportunities for active and retied members by recruiting, organizing and coordinating senior members in retiree chapters, and working with active members to initiate and implement programs for Employee Assistance and Community Services Representatives. She developed literature and materials for these departmental programs.

Ms. Cordone is currently the Executive Vice-Chair of the Democratic National Committee Senior Coordinating Council and is Co-Chair of the Democratic Seniors Network. She also serves on the boards of the Elderly Housing Development and Operations Corporation and the Fields of First Foundation, College Park Aviation and is active in the community, serving on the Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Department Citizen Advisory Panel and serving on the Board of the Towers in Westchester Park. She is the President and CEO of Mustard Seed, Inc., a non-profit organization involved in community-based outreach programs.

Frank Stella

Vice president of the NDSCC, Frank Stella serves as deputy to the director of organization and field services of the American Federation of Teachers, with special responsibility for retirees and associate members. A founding member of the National Democratic Seniors Coordinating Council, he has been working with AFT retirees since 1989, overseeing the growth in retiree membership from 32,500 to more than 250,000. He also serves as a board member and chair of the legislative committee of the Alliance for Retired Americans, the AFL-CIO’s organization for labor and community retirees. Frank is AFT’s representative to the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations, a coalition of some 60 national senior groups. He is a graduate of Assumption College and holds a Master’s Degree from Harvard University.

Max Richtman

A former staff director of the Senate Special Committee on Aging and 16-year veteran of Capitol Hill, Max Richtman is executive vice president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the nation’s second-largest senior advocacy and education organization. Richtman, who joined the organization in 1989 as director of government relations, was named executive vice president in 1991. He also serves as director of the National Committee’s political action committee.

During his congressional career, Richtman directed a lengthy investigation of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s enforcement of age-discrimination statutes and played key roles in reforms of the multi-billion-dollar federal and Indian oil and gas royalty collection system and Indian health care system.

Richtman began his career on Capitol Hill in 1975 as a staff assistant and counsel to the American Indian Policy Review Commission, chaired by Senator Jim Abourezk (D-SD). In 1977, Abourezk selected him as counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, which Abourezk chaired. In 1979, Richtman assumed the position of staff director of the committee under new chairman, Senator John Melcher (D-MT).

In 1987, Richtman was named staff director of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, a position he held until 1989, when he joined the National Committee.

Richtman was born in Munich, Germany, and grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. He graduated cum laude from Harvard College in 1969 and received his law degree from Georgetown University Law School in 1973. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar.

Linda Chavez-Thompson

Linda Chavez-Thompson was elected as executive vice president of the AFL-CIO at the federation’s 1995 convention and served in this position for twelve years, until September of 2007. She was the first person to hold the post of executive vice president and the first person of color to be elected to one of the federation's three highest offices. She now holds the title of executive vice president emerita.

A native of Lubbock, Texas, Chavez-Thompson is a second-generation American of Mexican descent. Upon her retirement, she celebrated 40 years of experience in the labor movement, beginning in 1967 with her first work for the Laborers' local union in Lubbock. She went on to serve in a variety of posts with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in San Antonio, Texas, and became an international vice president in 1988, a post she held until 1996. She also served from 1986 to 1996 as a national vice president of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, AFL-CIO. In 1993, Chavez-Thompson was elected and served a two-year term as one of 31 vice presidents on the Executive Council of the national AFL-CIO.

As executive vice president emerita of the federation, Chavez-Thompson will continue work on behalf of the AFL-CIO as Chair of the AFL-CIO Immigration Committee and as a member of the board of the American Association for People with Disabilities. She will continue to serve as a Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee and as the president of the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas, which is the Western Hemispheric arm of the International Trade Union Confederation.