Editor's note: Saving for retirement is not getting any easier. Yet the people charged with steering many of the nation's 401(k) plans often have little investing experience and no formal education. SmartMoney spoke with several of these managers to learn about their challenges and strategies. In this first section, we present the story of co-owner for whom retirement plans are one more item on a long checklist.

• An Overview
• Part II: Manager by Committee
• Part III: The Amateur Planner

Whether 401(k) participants at a big company do any better or worse than employees at a small or medium-size firm is hard to say; no one tracks the plans that way. (Overall, the plans collectively have matched the performance of the market itself during the crash and since.) But at firms of all sizes, the 401(k) plan has taken on increasing importance; 401(k) assets generate retirement income for about half of Americans over 65, while just 34% get pension payments. That makes running the plans a fairly big responsibility, and it has some legal teeth behind it. Unlike brokers, for example, 401(k) managers are considered fiduciaries in the eyes of the law they must act in the best interest of their coworkers, or they can be sued. What those best interests are is pretty clear, says Joshua Itzoe, a financial planner in Maryland and author of Fixing the 401(k): Their job is to help you accumulate as much money as possible.

But some employers just don t have much time to spend on that mission. Drive 20 minutes south of Seattle on Interstate 5 and, if you re lucky, you ll catch co-owner Rick Wakazuru in a rare quiet moment at Poulsbo RV, one of the biggest motor-home dealerships in the country. The lot is packed with luxury land yachts, the kind that come standard with flat-screen TVs and cost as much as an earthbound house in most cities. This economy hasn t been kind to the RV business: Poulsbo RV has closed three of its seven stores and laid off more than 100 employees, and Wakazuru spends hours every day on the phone with banks and creditors. Officially, he s in charge of the company s 401(k) plan, responsible for acting in his employees best interests when it comes to choosing investments. But honestly, he has too many other worries. The 401(k)? That s the least of my problems, says Wakazuru, who contributes to his own account but says he won t need it for retirement.

Wakazuru says he only agreed to set up the plan on two conditions: It wouldn t cost the company a dime, and he wouldn t have to deal with it. So, like many small-business owners without the people power to get things going, he turned to a benefits-plan broker in this case, Solomon Reeves, who has chosen and monitored the $1.8 million plan s investments for the past eight years. The plan s fees? Wakazuru doesn t know. The company that provides the funds in the plan? He isn t sure. Wakazuru also isn t sure what advice his employees are getting from Reeves, who makes the majority of his money selling health insurance plans.

Not surprisingly, the funds in Poulsbo s plans haven t exactly soared according to the most recent data available, the plan has done slightly worse than the S&P 500. Nearly a quarter of the offerings have been such poor performers over the past three years that they are now on the watch list, an orange alert status bestowed by Reeves before he boots a laggard from the plan s menu. Because the company wants to keep costs low, the firm doesn t match employee contributions. And fees aren t rock-bottom; at about 1.6 percent per year, they re roughly 30 percent higher than the average plan of the same size. If Wakazuru were to negotiate for a better deal, and if the business could absorb a few thousand dollars in fees each year, the company might be able to cut the costs to participants by 60 percent which would be a boon to their returns, says Itzoe, who reviewed the plan for SmartMoney. But it would require major changes from the employer and the service providers.

As it is, many employees at Poulsbo don t participate at all. Salesmen can make more than $80,000 per year, but without an employer match and little incentive beyond Reeves s urging, only about half of the workforce saves with the plan, and the average account balance is only around $20,000. Without a match, what s the point? asks company comptroller Ondine Bonser, who, in spite of considerable financial savvy, still had reservations about joining the plan. To Wakazuru, all these details about fees and funds and participation just fuel his frustration with 401(k) plans in general. It s too complicated, he says. You can t expect the owner or the employees to understand all this stuff.