Mr. Gregory Smith, PERA’s Director/CEO gave ECC members an overview of Colorado PERA, the state’s largest public pension fund. In addition to providing retirement security to over 500,000 Colorado public employees, Colorado PERA contributes to Colorado’s economy with retirement distributions resulting in $5.2 billion in total economic output. Serving PERA for more than 14 years, Mr. Smith is the sixth Executive Director of the retirement system, which has over $44 billion in defined benefit assets. Under Mr. Smith’s leadership and direction, Colorado PERA remains involved in many innovative ventures in the pension arena that keep Colorado PERA in the national forefront. Mr. Smith gave a high-level overview of PERA, its governance structure and operational model. In addition, Mr. Smith reviewed several independent studies commissioned by the General Assembly to evaluate the cost effectiveness of PERA, as well as discussed the sustainability of the fund.