Kansas Public Employees' Retirement System

Kansas Public Employees' Retirement System

The Kansas Public Employees' Retirement System was established in 1961 to provide retirement, disability, and survivor benefits for the state's public workforce. Executive Director Alan Conroy has led the Topeka-based system since 2012, overseeing a complex fiduciary operation that serves state and local government employees, school teachers, police, and firefighters. KPERS allocates capital across three primary private-market asset classes: real estate, infrastructure, and timberland. The real estate portfolio spans institutional commingled funds, including Blue Owl Real Estate Fund VII, LaSalle Property Fund, Morgan Stanley Property Fund, and Waterton Residential Property Venture XV. Infrastructure commitments flow through Blackstone Infrastructure Partners and J.P. Morgan Infrastructure Investments Fund, giving the system direct exposure to assets across North America and Europe. On the natural-resources side, KPERS holds interests in Lyme Forest Fund VI, BTG Pactual Open Ended Core US Timberland Fund, and RMS Evergreen US Forestland Fund, reflecting a global timberland mandate that complements the portfolio's core real-asset orientation. KPERS participates in industry networks that shape public-pension practice, maintaining memberships in the National Council on Public Employee Retirement Systems, the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, and the Government Finance Officers Association. The system operates from a single office at 611 S. Kansas Avenue in Topeka and reports to a Board of Trustees chaired by Brad Stratton. KPERS functions as a state-sponsored defined-benefit plan — a public trust obligated to meet statutory actuarial assumptions rather than pursue a private family-office-style mandate. Its allocation to manager-run commingled vehicles creates a structural gap between trustees and underlying portfolio-company governance, a model shared broadly across U.S. public pension systems.