IAFF

IAFF

The International Association of Fire Fighters Employees Pension Plan was established in 1957 as a defined-benefit plan serving the union's own workforce. The fund is financially administered under General Secretary-Treasurer Frank V. Lima, with operational oversight from COO Kurt Becker and trustee-level direction from General President Edward A. Kelly. Unlike the massive state-level firefighter retirement systems, this plan is narrowly scoped to IAFF's internal employees and officers. The pension's investment posture centers on secondaries and special situations. The plan also holds a direct real estate asset: the IAFF's own headquarters building at 1750 New York Avenue NW, a commercial property near the White House. With an estimated $44 million in assets, the fund operates without the consultant-heavy, multi-manager infrastructure common to billion-dollar public plans — it moves as a compact, internal capital pool. The IAFF's broader financial architecture includes the IAFF Financial Corporation, which operates as a taxable entity offering insurance and financial services to union members, and the IAFF Foundation, a philanthropic arm providing direct assistance to firefighters. Kurt Becker's role spans both union operations and the Financial Corporation, suggesting financial functions are managed through a small, centralized team rather than a dedicated investment staff. The plan's most distinctive structural feature is its embedded real asset — owning the union's headquarters. That direct property stake, combined with a secondaries-focused investment mandate, creates a hybrid posture rare among defined-benefit plans of any size. For allocators mapping the small-pension landscape, the IAFF represents a niche counterparty: mission-aligned with first-responder labor, sub-$50M in deployable assets, and operating without an external CIO or OCIO layer visible in the public record.