The State Compensation Insurance Fund opened its board meeting last week with two unannounced guests on its panel — Steve Rank, western region director for Ironworker Management Progressive Action Cooperative Trust, and Daniel Curtin, chairman of the Industrial Welfare Commission and director of the California Conference of Carpenters.

Although no formal announcement has been made of either appointment, Workers’ Comp Executive confirmed that Rank and Curtin are appointees of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to fill the vacant seats on the carrier’s board of directors. The additional seats were created by the passage of AB 1874 last year.

A third rookie also joined the board for this set of meetings —  former state Senator Mike Machado. Machado was appointed to SCIF’s board of directors by the Senate Rules Committee earlier this month.

Additional members will be forthcoming. The governor still has four additional positions to fill and the speaker of the Assembly has another to fill, but the board does not meet again until March.

AB 1874, authored by Assemblyman Joe Coto (D-San Jose), expanded SCIF’s board from five to 11 members, nine of whom are appointed by the governor. In addition to the newly created positions, the governor has an additional seat to fill because longtime board member James Santangelo has resigned his position.

See page 1 for more coverage from the meeting.