CINCINNATI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct 6, 2026--
Longtime industry leader, Joe Maringer, will be assuming the role of Chief Distribution Officer at MassMutual Ascend effective November 1, 2026, reporting to Dominic Blue, President and Chief Executive Officer of MassMutual Ascend. He succeeds Tim Minard, who shared his plans to retire at the end of this year after a 10-year career at MassMutual Ascend and over 40 years serving the insurance industry.
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Maringer has been with MassMutual Ascend (formerly Great American Life Insurance Company) for 26 years, most recently serving as Senior Vice President and National Sales Manager. During his tenure, Maringer has led the company’s national sales strategy, with a focus on streamlining advisor experience, deepening distributor relationships and driving digital innovation in the annuity industry.
“Under Tim’s leadership, MassMutual Ascend’s reputation as a leading annuity provider that offers proven solutions to help secure financial futures is as strong as ever,” said Blue. “As an established leader in the industry, Joe is well-positioned to build on this legacy and continue MassMutual Ascend’s place as a trusted partner across distribution channels.”
Maringer’s leadership at the company and well-established relationships in the industry have played a key role in the significant achievements MassMutual Ascend has seen in recent years. In the last five years alone, the company has sold over $40 billion of all the annuity product types it sells across all distribution channels. Specifically, there is exciting momentum within the Advisory channel, having recently surpassed $2 billion in lifetime advisory saleswhile repeatedly ranking as the No. 1 provider of advisory FIAs by LIMRA.
“Joe has nearly three decades of experience partnering with distributors and their advisors across the industry,” added Blue. “I look forward to the valuable impact his deep level of industry knowledge, well-built partnerships and proven dedication will have, both at our company as well as with our distribution partners and the clients they serve. I also appreciate Tim’s many contributions to MassMutual Ascend over the past decade and wish him all the best in retirement.”
About MassMutual Ascend Life Insurance Company
MassMutual Ascend Life Insurance Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of MassMutual, offers traditional fixed, fixed-indexed and registered index-linked annuities in the retail, broker-dealer, financial institutions and registered investment advisor markets. MassMutual Ascend is committed to taking financial futures above and beyond. From products to service to financial strength, the company is always in pursuit of better—so customers can navigate their futures with confidence.
For more information, visit MassMutualAscend.com.
Source: MassMutual Ascend Life Insurance Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of MassMutual
Tim Minard
Joe Maringer
WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for ABC on Tuesday asked a federal judge to prevent the Trump administration from conducting an unusual, early review of its broadcast licenses, likening it to a looming execution by guillotine that was already chilling the network’s editorial decisions just weeks before the U.S. midterm elections.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan did not immediately rule on ABC’s request for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the Federal Communications Commission from conducting its early review, which it said was unconstitutional, a violation of free speech and a retaliation for content President Donald Trump dislikes.
A government attorney argued that, as a procedural matter, the court doesn’t have jurisdiction over ABC’s case because it belongs in a different venue. The government also challenged the network’s First Amendment arguments, and said ABC had failed to show it suffered irreparable harm.
A ruling was not expected until at least mid-October. After extensively questioning both sides, she asked them to submit brief additional arguments by Oct. 9, for the government, and Oct. 14, for ABC.
ABC and its parent company, Disney, sued the FCC and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr in August, several months after the commission ordered eight ABC-owned stations to submit renewal applications for their broadcast licenses years ahead of schedule.
The case is one of several ongoing legal battles between Trump’s Republican administration and news outlets — including The Associated Press — over their coverage and access to the executive branch since Trump returned to the White House for a second term.
At Tuesday's two-hour hearing, ABC attorney Beth Wilkinson harkened back to the French Revolution to illustrate what she called the chilling effect that the renewal process was having on the network. It was, she said, like having one's “head on the guillotine,” forced to wonder “if anything we say is going to make it come down.”
“Our editorial decisions are being affected right now,” Wilkinson said, noting that the U.S. midterm elections are fast approaching. “We are watching everything that we do.”
She reiterated the First Amendment argument ABC has been making since the beginning — that it was being targeted for its content. “President Donald Trump has made his stance clear over and over again,” Wilkinson said. “What he says is because of that content, because of that speech, ABC should lose its license.
“These are blatant violations of the U.S. Constitution,” she said, calling it a threat not just to ABC but to all broadcast media.
Dimitar Georgiev-Remmel, the Department of Justice attorney, explicitly rejected the guillotine analogy.
Georgiev-Remmel argued that the court lacked jurisdiction, but that even if it decided it had jurisdiction, a preliminary injunction should still be denied. He said ABC had not established a likelihood of success on the merits of the case, and also had not established irreparable harm, because the network’s eight licenses remain valid.
Issuing a preliminary injunction at ABC’s request would mean “allowing them to sidestep” the path that Congress has set up for regulatory action appeals, Georgiev-Remmel said.
Asked by the judge what irreparable harm ABC had suffered, Wilkinson answered: “The irreparable injury is the chill, and the threat of retaliation for First Amendment speech and editorial decisions ABC makes every day.”
In its lawsuit, ABC had asked the judge to temporarily prohibit the FCC from taking any further action related to its license renewal proceedings. ABC also sought to prohibit the commission from trying to coerce or threaten the network to alter its “exercise of editorial discretion.”
“The First Amendment demands an immediate end to the Commission’s retaliatory campaign,” ABC attorneys wrote.
Carr, a Trump ally, ordered the early review of the stations’ licenses in April — just after a joke by ABC’s late-night host Jimmy Kimmel infuriated Trump, who called for the comedian's firing.
ABC also had been fighting Carr’s efforts to make the morning talk show “The View” subject to equal-time rules. Carr defended his agency’s actions against ABC by saying broadcasters have a duty to “operate in the public interest.”
Government attorneys urged the court to dismiss ABC’s lawsuit, accusing the network of trying to prematurely ward off scrutiny by federal regulators.
“To foreclose the Commission from using all the tools at its disposal to investigate whether Plaintiffs are meeting their statutory and regulatory duties would seriously harm both the government and the public,” Justice Department lawyers wrote.
AliKhan was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
Noveck reported from New York, and Boone from Boise, Idaho.
FILE - Members of the press appear in the spin room during a presidential debate between Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, on screen at left, and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, right, Sept. 10, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
FILE - Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr testifies before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology oversight hearing of the Federal Communications Commission on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
