As research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, Keith Brainard collects, prepares and distributes to NASRA members news, studies and reports pertinent to public retirement system administration and policy. NASRA members are the directors and administrators of 82 statewide public retirement systems in the United States. Combined, these systems hold assets of more than $2 trillion in trust to fund pension and other benefits for most of the nation’s 22 million working and retired employees of state and local government.

Mr. Brainard has testified on public pension issues before Congress and state legislative committees, and he speaks regularly before public pension boards of trustees and other groups. He is co-author of the “Governmental Plans Answer Book, Second Edition, author of the NASRA white paper, Myths & Misperceptions of Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution Plans,” and co-author of a 2004 Pension Research Council working paper, “Profitable Prudence: The Case for Public Defined Benefit Plans.” Keith also maintains the Public Fund Survey, an online compendium of public pension data sponsored jointly by NASRA and the National Council on Teacher Retirement.

Mr. Brainard previously served as manager of budget & planning for the Arizona State Retirement System and he provided fiscal research and analysis for the Texas and Arizona legislatures. He has a master’s degree from the University of Texas-Austin, LBJ School of Public Affairs.