# Guadalupe Blanco River Authority

Guadalupe Blanco River Authority is a Pension Fund based in New Braunfels, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Pension Fund
- **Headquarters:** New Braunfels, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** New Braunfels, TX, United States
- **Founded:** 1966
- **Assets under management:** $33M (Altss estimate)
- **Website:** gbra.org
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/guadalupe-blanco-river-authority

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

The Guadalupe Blanco River Authority Employees Retirement Plan was established in 1966 as a defined-benefit plan providing retirement, death, and disability benefits for employees of the water-district authority. The plan is administered by a Retirement and Benefits Committee drawn from the authority's board, which as of 2026 includes Chair Dennis Patillo and Vice-Chair Patrick Cohoon. The wealth source is not private family capital; it is the accumulation of employer and employee contributions across nearly six decades of operations in a legislatively defined service district. The retirement pool runs roughly $33 million (Altss estimate) and allocates primarily to distressed-debt and timber mandates. While the plan does not disclose its external manager roster, asset-class tags indicate a structure reliant on specialized fund commitments. The underlying authority retains an extensive industrial footprint — the retirement capital is legally distinct from GBRA's ownership of the Canyon Lake Dam, the Coleto Creek Reservoir, the Western Canyon Water Treatment Plant, and eight other impoundments and treatment facilities spread across Comal, Guadalupe, Gonzales, and Victoria counties. Operational scale derives from the authority, not the pension pool. The plan joined the Texas County and District Retirement System in 2019 for future accruals of active employees, a structural move that shifted ongoing service-cost risk to a statewide pool while the legacy defined-benefit liabilities remain with the GBRA plan. The board's professional network extends through the Government Finance Officers Association, where it has earned recognition for financial reporting across 49 consecutive years, and through oversight by the Texas Pension Review Board. The fund's structural differentiator is the sharp separation between a hydro-asset balance sheet and the retirement pool. This insulation creates a narrow but clearly bounded investment mandate for Nichols and his team.

## Sectors

- Infrastructure
- Real Estate
- Energy Transition & Renewables
- Private Credit

## Offices

- Seguin, TX

## People

- Dennis Patillo — Chair of the Board; President of Evangelynn Hospitality LLC
- Patrick Cohoon — Vice-Chair of the Board; Managing Member of Leger, Ketchum and Cohoon, PLLC
- Darrell Nichols — General Manager and CEO
- Randy Staats — Executive Manager of Finance and CFO

## Questions

### Who runs investment decisions at Guadalupe Blanco River Authority?

Plan governance is shared between the Retirement and Benefits Committee and the authority's executive management. Chair Dennis Patillo and Vice-Chair Patrick Cohoon sit on the board, while General Manager Darrell Nichols and CFO Randy Staats handle day-to-day oversight of the plan's external manager relationships.

### Does GBRA's retirement plan invest in the water infrastructure the authority controls?

No. The pension assets are maintained in distressed-debt and timber strategies, not in the dams, reservoirs, or treatment plants owned by the authority. The underlying infrastructure — Canyon Lake Dam, Coleto Creek Reservoir, and roughly a dozen other assets — sits on the authority's operating balance sheet and is unavailable to pension beneficiaries.

### What is GBRA's relationship with the Texas County and District Retirement System?

In 2019, GBRA joined TCDRS for active employees' future service accruals. The legacy defined-benefit plan remains with GBRA, but current workers no longer accrue benefits inside the legacy pool. This partitions new service-cost risk into the statewide plan while the original liabilities stay behind.

### How large is the GBRA Employees Retirement Plan?

An Altss estimate places the pool at approximately $33 million. The plan does not publish an audited AUM figure, and the number reflects triangulation from its prior pension filings and the TCDRS transition.

## Related profiles

- [Cuesta College Foundation](https://altss.com/profile/cuesta-college-foundation)
- [ProHealth Care](https://altss.com/profile/prohealth-care)

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Last updated: 2026-08-11T02:43:31.692Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/guadalupe-blanco-river-authority

Maintained by Altss — https://altss.com — methodology: https://altss.com/methodology