Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons International Association

Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons International Association

The Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons International Association Officers & Employees Pension Fund launched in 1973 to provide retirement, disability, and death benefits for the union's administrative and field personnel. Based in Sparks, Maryland, the plan sits inside a broader labor ecosystem that includes the AFL-CIO and North America's Building Trades Unions, linking its fiduciary fate to the health of skilled construction trades. Kevin D. Sexton assumed the General President role in February 2023, succeeding Daniel E. Stepano, who had held the post since 2016. Chester Murphy was appointed General Secretary-Treasurer effective November 2025. The fund's investment strategy concentrates on real assets, secondaries, and special situations — a mix that reflects both the union's sector knowledge and the plan's long-duration liabilities. Known asset holdings include the OPCMIA International Headquarters building in Columbia, Maryland, and the Local 132 Training Center in Dayton, Ohio. The fund participates in direct real estate alongside other institutional co-investors, most notably the Gateway Development Commission on the Hudson Tunnel Project, a multibillion-dollar infrastructure undertaking. The plan is administered by Associated Administrators, LLC, a common structure for multiemployer Taft-Hartley plans that outsources day-to-day recordkeeping and compliance while trustees retain investment authority. The plan's total assets are estimated at $98M, making it a smaller institutional pool relative to national multiemployer giants. The fund operates alongside related vehicles, including the Plasterers Local 82 Pension Fund, and supports affiliate training facilities through the OPCMIA International Training Fund. Industry affiliations with AWCI and the Canadian Labour Congress underscore the fund's integration with the wall-and-ceiling trade ecosystem rather than any ambition to operate as a standalone institutional allocator. Structurally, OPCMIA's pension vehicle is not a single-family office or a conventional asset manager — it is a Taft-Hartley multiemployer plan governed jointly by union and contributing employer trustees. This governance model imposes fiduciary constraints that differ materially from corporate or public pension funds, particularly around expense sensitivity and the primacy of actuarial funding targets over absolute return maximization. The plan's co-investment in major public infrastructure, like the Hudson Tunnel Project, signals a willingness to blend direct project exposure with the more traditional fund-of-fund secondaries approach typical of smaller union plans.