(April 8, 2013) — Eastman Kodak CIO Timothy Barrett is heading to Texas.
According to sources, Barrett will assume the role of CIO at the $1.5 billion Texas Tech University endowment on Monday, April 15. While the university is in Lubbock, Barrett will be based in the state capital, Austin.
His last day at the Rochester-based Eastman Kodak pension fund will be Friday, April 13. Eastman Kodak, a closed plan, has $5 billion in defined benefit assets under management. Barrett will be replacing Gary Ratliff, who left the fund in October to become Senior Consultant at Watershed Investment Consultants.
The move will put Barrett in an elite class: Having previously been the CIO of San Bernardino County’s pension, he will have managed a public pension, a corporate pension, and, now, an endowment.
Texas Tech’s Michael Horst, assistant vice chancellor and investments manager, has been serving as interim CIO since Ratliff’s departure.
Barrett is a member of aiCIO’s Power 100, and recently spoke with aiCIO about the situation in Rochester. “We’re in Chapter 11 bankruptcy with Kodak,” he said in October. “We will come out of this bankruptcy, and our pension will continue to be a best-in-class operation.”
Barrett’s deputy, Thomas Mucha, was also on aiCIO‘s Forty Under Forty in 2012.
There is no word yet as to who will succeed Barrett at the helm of the Kodak fund.
Further reading: Barrett’s Power 100 profile.