‘Saint Constance’ Fixes the Unfixable as Patron of Lost Pensions

There’s no such thing as a lost cause to Constance Donovan.

In her five years as the congressionally-mandated participant and plan sponsor advocate at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, she’s been a lifeline for flustered pension holders and employers at a federal agency she’s characterized as often effective but prone to being opaque, defensive, and adversarial. She’s revived legal cases by pensioners that had gone cold for years and unearthed documentation that supposedly didn’t exist.

“We get a call, we move on it,” she said of her budding team’s goal of responding to pleas for help within 24 hours. That ...