The new Teachers’ Retirement System’s Member Education Center has been named after Mel Aaronson, a retired UFT treasurer who served for 35 years on the TRS Board of Trustees, including four as board chair. The Melvyn Aaronson Member Education Center will offer workshops for members to learn about their TRS benefits. Aaronson said the most important thing that UFT members need to know as they plan for retirement is the importance of the “four-legged stool”: pension, Social Security, tax-deferred annuity savings and health insurance. “We’re lucky as New York City retirees to have all four, and we have them because we have a strong union,” said Aaronson, who was a UFT founder. At the naming ceremony on May 15 at TRS headquarters in lower Manhattan, UFT Assistant Treasurer Tom Brown, the current chair of the TRS board, noted the impact that his predecessor had made. “Because of your advocacy, your hard work, your diligence and your knowledge, our retirees now enjoy a financially secure future,” Brown said.