Joe Dear is giving a pep talk to more than two dozen colleagues at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. As Dear paces before his people on this July afternoon in Sacramento, he implores them to shake off the funk of the pension fund’s recent troubles.
For the next three hours, he says, they’re going to figure out how to solve some of the most daunting problems dogging Calpers, the largest public pension fund in the U.S., with $200 billion in assets. Dear, its chief investment officer since March 2009, wants results on his desk in 100 days.
