Sheet Metal Workers International Association, Local Union #16

Sheet Metal Workers International Association, Local Union #16

SMART Local 16's pension plan is the defined-benefit retirement vehicle for sheet metal workers across the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. The fund sits under the governance of Business Manager and Financial Secretary-Treasurer Scott Strickland, who also co-chairs the Oregon Workers' Compensation Management-Labor Advisory Committee. The parent international union, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), provides national-scale bargaining power, but the local trust retains independent fiduciary control over its assets. The fund's strategy is singularly concentrated on private-equity secondaries — the purchase of pre-existing LP interests from other investors seeking liquidity. This capital allocation avoids direct venture, buyout, or real-asset commitments in favor of positions with shorter J-curves and visibility into underlying portfolios. Its real-asset footprint is limited to the ownership of union-operations real estate, including the Local 16 Union Hall and Training Center at 2379 NE 178th Avenue. The training center, operated jointly with the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors' National Association (SMACNA), doubles as a workforce pipeline that underpins the local's collective-bargaining strength and ultimately the contributions flowing into the pension fund. Geography follows the membership. Local 16's jurisdiction covers the skilled sheet-metal workforce in Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, and Columbia counties. As of public records, the plan's direct holdings and targeted commitments remain undisclosed, with no regulatory filings surfacing a specific AUM figure. The fund's representation within the Oregon State Building Trades Council and the AFL-CIO places it inside the broader network of jointly trusteed construction-industry pension funds, which collectively exert influence as labor-friendly institutional investors. The fund's structural differentiator is its single-strategy focus on secondaries, an unusual posture for a sub-scale Taft-Hartley plan. Most multi-employer union pensions diversify across real estate, fixed income, and broad-market public equities. Local 16's concentration signals either an opportunistic liquidity provision role among smaller benefit plans or a deliberate choice to delegate generalist exposure elsewhere, leaving this trust to harvest discounts in the secondary market without the staffing burden of a direct investment program.