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Bricklayers Allied Craftsmen Pension Plan No 3
Northwestern Ohio Administrators, Inc. (NOA) launched in 1981 as a joint creation of union labor and construction management, and the Bricklayers Allied...
Bricklayers Allied Craftsmen Pension Plan No 3
Northwestern Ohio Administrators, Inc. (NOA) launched in 1981 as a joint creation of union labor and construction management, and the Bricklayers Allied Craftsmen Pension Plan No 3 was one of its founding benefit plans. The plan is a Taft-Hartley defined-benefit pension fund, which means it is funded through hourly contributions required under collective bargaining agreements. The governing board is split evenly — five trustees from unions and five from contributing employers — ensuring that allocation decisions require consensus between labor and management. The fund has never had a named Chief Investment Officer or listed investment staff on its public filings, making it one of the region's most quietly operated multi-employer plans. The plan pursues a traditional balanced strategy, with public equity and fixed income forming the core of the trust. Real estate appears as a distinct sleeve, and the plan's investment policy permits allocations to private equity, hedge funds, and private credit when selected external managers meet the board's fiduciary requirements. The geographic focus of the plan's benefits — Northwestern Ohio and the Maumee River Valley — does not constrain its investment footprint, which is national in scope through pooled funds and separate accounts. Specific manager lineups and direct holdings are not disclosed on the NOA website, reflecting the common practice among Taft-Hartley plans that report only through annual Department of Labor Form 5500 filings. Total plan assets are not published on the NOA website, and no assets-under-management figure has appeared in recent press. The absence of a publicly disclosed AUM, combined with the plan's single-administrator structure through NOA, suggests a fund size typical of regional multi-employer plans — likely in the hundreds of millions, not billions. NOA itself employs a single paid officer, the Executive Director, and a small administrative staff working from an office park in Maumee, Ohio. That lean structure reflects the plan's operational model: investment management, actuarial services, and legal counsel are all outsourced, leaving the NOA team to focus on contribution collection and compliance. What distinguishes this plan structurally is the parity board and the Taft-Hartley umbrella. Unlike a corporate pension fund, where a single sponsor absorbs funding risk, this plan rests on a web of contributing employers in the unionized masonry and tile trades — a base that has contracted in many US markets but retains density in Ohio's commercial construction corridor between Toledo and Cleveland. The equal representation of labor and management trustees also means the plan cannot shift its asset allocation or adopt a new consultant without a cross-party vote, a governance feature that tends to mute style-drift but can slow tactical pivots.
General information
Firm type
Pension Fund
Year founded
1981
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Maumee
Corporate office
1720 Indian Wood Circle Suite C, Maumee, Ohio 43537, United States
Principals
Not publicly disclosed
Executive Director
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Bricklayers Allied Craftsmen Pension Plan No 3?
The plan's Board of Trustees sets investment policy. The board comprises five union trustees and five employer trustees, a structure required under Taft-Hartley. An Executive Director — the sole paid officer of the administering entity, Northwestern Ohio Administrators, Inc. — handles daily administration but does not serve as an in-house investment officer. Day-to-day portfolio management is outsourced to external investment managers and monitored by the board with support from an outside investment consultant.
How does the plan source managers and investment opportunities?
The plan does not originate proprietary deals. It structures its portfolio through public-market mandates and limited-partnership commitments to institutional asset managers. Manager selection typically runs through a competitive RFP process or is mediated by the plan's investment consultant. The fund does not operate a direct-investment or co-investment program, focusing instead on pooled fund access across public equity, fixed income, real estate, and private markets.
Does the plan invest directly in real estate or infrastructure?
The plan gains real estate and infrastructure exposure primarily through pooled institutional funds and separate accounts managed by third-party advisors. It does not maintain an in-house real estate acquisitions team. Allocation decisions for these sleeves are reviewed by the board and reflect the plan's long-term liability-matching horizon rather than short-term opportunistic trading.
What is Northwestern Ohio Administrators, Inc.'s role in the plan?
Northwestern Ohio Administrators, Inc. (NOA) is the not-for-profit administrative service provider that handles contribution collection, recordkeeping, and regulatory compliance for the Bricklayers plan and other Taft-Hartley benefit programs. NOA was formed in 1981 by the same union-and-employer coalition that launched the plan. The corporation employs a single paid officer — the Executive Director — and operates from Maumee, Ohio.
How is the plan governed, and who sits on its investment committee?
The plan is governed by a ten-member Board of Trustees — five appointed by participating unions and five by contributing employers. There is no separately named investment committee; the full board functions as the investment committee. This equal-representation governance structure is a hallmark of Taft-Hartley pension funds and means that any investment policy change requires approval from both labor and management trustees.
What is the plan's funding status and actuarial position?
The plan does not publish its funded ratio or actuarial reports on the NOA website. As a multi-employer defined-benefit plan, its funding status is reported annually on the Form 5500 filed with the Department of Labor and may also appear in the plan's annual funding notice to participants. The most recent public filing would be the authoritative source for its zone status under the Pension Protection Act, but that information is not maintained on nwoadm.com.
How is this plan related to other Taft-Hartley plans administered by NOA?
NOA acts as the shared administrative hub for several Taft-Hartley benefit plans in Northwestern Ohio's unionized construction trades. Each plan — including the Bricklayers pension fund — remains a legally distinct trust with its own board, investment policy, and actuarial structure. While they share back-office administration and possibly some vendor relationships, the assets are not commingled across plans, and each board operates autonomously.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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