Operating Engineers Local 324 Pension (OE324)

A board of trustees jointly appointed by the union and contributing employers bears fiduciary responsibility. Douglas W. Stockwell, the union's business manager, and Lee Graham serve as trustees, while Scott Hart operates as CFO. Investment policy is set at the trustee level, with day-to-day manager selection and monitoring typically delegated to an external consultant or in-house staff.

OE324 primarily allocates through commingled fund structures rather than direct equity. Its real estate exposure comes through the OEPT Realty Portfolio, while liquid alternatives run through vehicles like the ABS Long/Short Strategies Fund. The venture capital sleeve favors fund commitments to generalist and industrial-adjacent managers, consistent with most mid-sized Taft-Hartley plans that lack dedicated direct-investment teams.

Taft-Hartley plans are jointly trusteed by labor and management, which tends to produce conservative liquidity parameters — they need to fund monthly benefit checks for retired equipment operators. That reality pushes the portfolio toward daily-valued or quarterly-redemption fund structures and away from long-duration private-equity lockups as a dominant allocation. Manager selection often emphasizes track-record length and institutional-grade operations over emerging-manager risk.

Based on its structure and disclosed vehicles, the fund's portfolio appears concentrated in US-based assets. The OEPT Realty Portfolio holds Michigan properties; the ABS Long/Short Strategies Fund is domiciled in Connecticut. Publicly available information does not suggest a dedicated international or emerging-markets allocation, though hedge-fund holdings may carry some global exposure through individual manager mandates.

Contributions come from signatory contractors to collective bargaining agreements with Operating Engineers Local 324, largely through the Associated General Contractors of Michigan, which partners with the union on fringe benefit fund administration. The employer base spans heavy construction, road building, and infrastructure contractors operating in Michigan.

The fund does not publicly disclose assets under management. Based on the scale of similar Michigan-based Taft-Hartley multi-employer plans serving heavy-equipment operators, the portfolio likely falls between $500 million and $2 billion (Altss estimate). Disclosure practice varies widely among union pensions of this size — many only report through annual Form 5500 filings.

There is no public evidence of a direct co-investment or principal direct-deal program. The pension's venture exposure appears to flow through fund commitments, and its real estate holdings are structured through a dedicated portfolio vehicle rather than deal-by-deal equity. Most pensions in this size tier rely on fund managers for sourced exposure rather than building in-house direct capabilities.