Operating Engineers' Local 324 Health Care Plan

Operating Engineers' Local 324 Health Care Plan

The Operating Engineers' Local 324 Health Care Plan was established in 1997 as the benefits arm of a Michigan labor union founded in 1906. The plan serves heavy-equipment operators and stationary engineers who build the state's roads, bridges, and infrastructure, with employer contributions negotiated through collective bargaining with groups like the Associated General Contractors of Michigan and the Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation Association. Douglas W. Stockwell, the union's Business Manager and General Vice President, and CFO Scott Hart are the named fiduciaries tied to the plan's operations. Despite its modest $211 million in assets, the plan's investment posture is aggressively diversified across the private markets spectrum. The alternative investment portfolio includes commitments to buyout, venture capital across all stages from seed to late-stage expansion, distressed debt, mezzanine financing, and natural resources. The plan also pursues secondaries and special situations, a signal of an opportunistic liquidity-taking posture. Its core architecture relies on a fund-of-funds model paired with co-investment multi-manager sleeves, a structure that allows the plan to write smaller checks into top-quartile managers while concentrating selectively alongside GPs on direct deals. The geographic footprint is Michigan-centric in its beneficiary base, but the investment remit is national, drawing on managers across the United States. Administrative records point to a real-asset footprint beyond securities, with the plan holding commercial property at 500 and 550 Hulet Drive in Bloomfield Township, Michigan. The plan operates within the broader International Union of Operating Engineers federation and the AFL-CIO labor network, though no evidence suggests these affiliations directly influence manager selection. The plan's alternative investment portfolio is notably comprehensive for a single local union's health-and-welfare trust, resembling the allocation complexity more commonly seen at the international union level or at large corporate plans. What distinguishes the Operating Engineers' Local 324 Health Care Plan is its posture as a small Taft-Hartley fund that deploys across the entire private-capital lifecycle — from seed-stage venture to distressed turnaround — inside a single commingled benefits trust. Most multiemployer plans of similar size stick to core fixed income and large-cap equity; this one runs a program that would not look out of place at a $2 billion endowment. The governance structure, with the union's business manager and CFO exercising direct fiduciary authority, concentrates decision-making in a way that permits the speed required for co-investment execution, a structural advantage few peer plans can replicate.