While we can't believe we are reaching the end of 2021, today we had a fantastic visit with Carolyn Hansard, Senior Director - Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure, from the Teacher Retirement System ("TRS") of Texas to complete an amazing year of COBT guests. Carolyn's background includes 9 years at TRS and 17 years at Merrill Lynch in London, Tokyo, and New York. She is a longtime friend of ours! 

To begin, Carolyn walks us through an overview of TRS and their portfolio. TRS is one of the largest pension funds in the nation and Texas educators make up roughly 6% of the state's population. We touch on the considerations Carolyn and her team make when investing, how those considerations may differ by state, framework for risk and disruption, cryptocurrency and a few concerns to watch over the next few years. With Carolyn, we hit on all the questions you might expect us to, with a twist here and there. Hearing Carolyn addressing the issues of the day from the vantage point of a $19 billion energy investor really adds a lot of perspective. We think you'll enjoy the conversation as much as we did! 

The kickoff today was really great. Everyone hit on some of their top themes of 2021. Mike Bradley rattled off a ton of them, with the performance of classic energy being key. Matt Portillo hit on some of the big picture investor themes and preferences underlying that performance. Chad Michael, our new President, reviewed some transactional themes for the year as well. Lastly, Colin Fenton gave a robust summary of the "truth tellers" versus the "dogmatists" as he reflected on the big questions of the year. 

Today's COBT is our last for the year. Like you, we are very excited about spending some time with our family and friends. On January 4th, we will be back with a session featuring Rob West from Thunder Said Energy. Rob is a fresh energy thinker and we can't wait to visit with him. We will also share our own reflections on 2021 and introduce our big picture thoughts for 2022. 

And... WE ARE MOVING! As you may know, I will be transitioning out of TPH on January 7th. It has been a magical 14 years and 15 days. We are planning on standing up "COBT" as a new platform and that's going to be a very exciting thing. You will be able to find us in the future at our new webpage, www.veriten.com. The first episode of COBT in the new format will be coming your way on Wednesday morning, February 2nd!