UA Local 525

UA Local 525

The UA Local 525 Pension Plan was established in 1962 as a defined-benefit plan serving plumbers, steamfitters, and related trades in southern Nevada. Unlike corporate pension plans, its board is jointly trusteesed: union officers Matthew Lydon and Ryan Litster sit alongside management trustees appointed by the Mechanical Contractors Association of Las Vegas. The plan is administered by BeneSys Inc., a third-party benefits administrator. The broader union operates a training center on Leigon Way in Las Vegas and maintains an educational partnership with the College of Southern Nevada for an associate's degree program in piping trades, reflecting a vertically integrated labor-education pipeline that feeds the industry the fund ultimately relies on. Deployment is unusually broad for a mid-sized Taft-Hartley plan. Beyond traditional defined-benefit core allocations, the fund self-reports a strategy mix that includes buyout, venture capital from seed to late stage, distressed debt, mezzanine, natural resources, and secondaries — a range suggesting either an aggressive alternatives posture or aggregated fund-of-funds exposure. The plan holds direct commercial real estate, including the Collective Union Health Clinic in northwest Las Vegas and another in Henderson, purpose-built healthcare facilities that serve union members while functioning as income-producing assets. Signatory contractors that employ members — and therefore drive contributions into the plan — include P1 Group, Hansen Mechanical Contractors, Bombard Mechanical, and Ryan Mechanical Inc., linking the fund's inflow health directly to non-residential construction activity in the Las Vegas Valley. Total assets are not publicly disclosed, but Altss estimates approximately $372 million based on benefit obligations and reported plan characteristics. The fund's professional network extends through the United Association international union, the Nevada State Pipe Trades, and the Southern Nevada Building Trades Union, a coalition representing 19 construction unions. This multi-union network may serve as a co-investment and information-sharing channel, particularly for real estate and infrastructure deals in the intermountain West. In recent years, the plan has continued to operate the Henderson health clinic facility, maintaining a direct real asset on its books that doubles as a member benefit. What distinguishes Local 525 structurally is the combination of direct union health clinic ownership, a highly diversified alternatives menu for its size, and a jointly trusteesed board that gives both labor and signatory contractors fiduciary voice. Few plans of comparable scale run strategies extending into venture capital, distressed debt, and natural resources. The clinic assets — purpose-built healthcare real estate occupied by the union's own health plan — create an unusual overlap between pension assets and member welfare that most Taft-Hartley plans do not replicate.