Board of Trustees

State Treasurer
Ex Officio member of the Board since December 17, 2021

• Member, Administrative Committee
• Member, Investment Committee
• Member, Audit Committee

Dereck E. Davis assumed the position of 24th Maryland State Treasurer in December 2021. In this role, he oversees the State Treasurer’s Office and serves as the primary representative to financial rating agencies and investment banking firms. As a Constitutional Officer and representative of the General Assembly, Treasurer Davis is a member of various state boards and financial planning committees.

Treasurer Davis serves as the chair for the Capital Debt Affordability Committee, the Commission on State Debt, MarylandSaves, and is a of member of Board of Revenue Estimates. Additionally, he serves on several other boards and councils, including the Board of Public Works with the Governor and the Comptroller.

Prior to becoming Treasurer, Mr. Davis represented the 25th Legislative District of Prince George’s County in the Maryland House of Delegates for 27 years, where he chaired the Economic Matters Committee. Over the course of his career, Treasurer Davis has been active in national, regional, and state organizations, particularly in telecommunications, public utilities, and insurance. He earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and master’s degree in public policy from the University of Maryland College Park.

State Comptroller
Ex Officio member of the Board since January 16, 2023

• Chair, Investment Committee
• Member, Corporate Governance and Securities Litigation Committee

As Maryland Comptroller, Brooke Lierman holds an ex officio seat on the Board of Trustees.

Trustee Lierman is a civil rights and disability rights attorney, a mother and a two–term State Delegate representing the 46th Legislative District. She served for five years as a member of the Appropriations Committee before assuming a leadership role on the Environment and Transportation Committee in 2019. Before her election as Comptroller, she also served as the House Chair for the Joint Committee on Pensions, sat on the Joint Committee on Ending Homelessness, and founded and formerly co–chaired the Maryland Transit Caucus.

In the House of Delegates, Trustee Lierman wrote landmark legislation that invests in public transit, funds reading supports for public school students, closed loopholes in paid family leave laws, prevents source-of-income discrimination in housing, promotes evidence-based gun violence interruption programs, and established a first-in-the-nation Styrofoam ban.

Comptroller Lierman resides in Baltimore’s Fell’s Point neighborhood with her husband and two children.

Term: August 1, 2025—July 31, 2029

• Member, Administrative Committee
• Member, Audit Committee
• Member, Compensation and Staffing Committee

Jamaal R. A. Craddock, a ten-year veteran of the Department of Juvenile Services, was elected by active and retired members of the Employees’ Systems to represent their interests on the Board of Trustees.

Trustee Craddock is a member of the Maryland chapter of AFSCME and has represented the organization on retirement matters before the Maryland General Assembly. Most recently, Mr. Craddock led AFSCME’s effort to bring DJS employees into the Correctional Officers’ Retirement System.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in business management from Morgan State University.

Term: August 1, 2023—July 31, 2027

• Member, Administrative Committee
• Member, Compensation and Staffing Committee

Ayana K. English-Brown was elected to the Board of Trustees by active and retired members of the Teachers’ Retirement and Pension System of Maryland.

Trustee English-Brown retired July 1, 2022, as a 24-year Career Technical Education teacher of the Prince George’s County Public School System (PGCPS) at Suitland High School, and she has over 35 years as an educator. She is a National Board Certified Teacher who has worked for 16 years as a cohort leader, provider and mentor for PGCPS’s National Board candidates. She has been a delegate to the National Education Association (NEA), Maryland State Education Association (MSEA) and Prince George’s County Educators’ Association (PGCEA) for more than 10 years.

Trustee English-Brown recently served on the 2022 PGCEA’s Negotiating Bargaining Committee. She was a governor-appointed member of the Longitudinal Data System State Board and Professional Standards Teacher Education Board. She is lifetime member of MSEA/NEA Retired Teachers and a current member of the Maryland Retired School Personnel Association.

Trustee English-Brown received her Education Specialist degree in Leadership from American College of Education and her Master’s degree from the University of the District of Columbia in Administration and Supervision.

Term: August 1, 2023—July 31, 2027

• Vice-Chair, Corporate Governance and Securities Litigation Committee
• Member, Investment Committee
• Member, Compensation and Staffing Committee

Sheila Hill started her career as a state employee in 1987 with the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services as a Correctional Officer. She served as president of AFSCME Local 1319 at the Patuxent Institution from 1997 until her retirement in 2012. Ms. Hill also served on the Executive Board of AFSCME Maryland and chaired the Maryland AFSCME Corrections Steering Committee. Throughout her career she represented employee concerns about compensation, staffing and benefits before the General Assembly.

Ms. Hill was first elected to the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System as a Trustee representing active employees in 2004, serving on the Administrative and Investment Committees and as chair of the Corporate Governance Committee until her retirement in 2012. Three years later, Ms. Hill was elected as the retirees’ representative in the 2015 Employees’ Systems Trustee Election. Her four-year term began on August 1, 2015.

The youngest of five children and daughter of a career Army non-commissioned officer, Ms. Hill was born in Frankfurt, Germany. She moved to Columbia in 1970 when her father retired. Ms. Hill now resides in Catonsville, Baltimore County.

Term: August 1, 2024–July 31, 2028

• Member, Corporate Governance and Securities Litigation Committee
• Member, Audit Committee

Charles Hopkins is a gubernatorial appointee to the Board of Trustees of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System.

Trustee Hopkins is the Founder and Managing Partner of Hamilton Hall Real Estate Partners, LLC, which focuses on real asset and commercial retail investments in airports as an emerging fund manager of private equity real estate investments. Mr. Hopkins has more than 30 years in the investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, real estate private equity and commercial development sectors.

Prior to Hamilton Hall, Trustee Hopkins developed commercial retail assets in airports across the country and lodging assets in urban destination markets. He also advised on over $4 billion in transactions as an investment banker with JP Morgan & Co. and Alex. Brown & Sons, as a mergers and acquisitions advisor to the US Federal Reserve Board, and as a capital markets advisor to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Mr. Hopkins received an AB degree in Politics cum laude from Princeton University, where he was a Westinghouse Fellow and Rhodes Scholar Finalist (Md.), and an MBA in Finance and Real Estate from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Mobil Corporation Scholar.

Term: August 1, 2026—July 31, 2030

• Vice-Chair, Administrative Committee
• Member, Audit Committee
• Member, Investment Committee
• Member, Compensation and Staffing Committee

Richard E. Norman retired at the rank of Captain from the Maryland State Police after 28 years of service. Mr. Norman joined the Maryland State Police in January 1977 and after graduation worked as a uniformed road patrol officer for two years. He then worked as a criminal investigator for the next 18 years specializing in narcotics, white collar crime and child abuse investigations. Mr. Norman also served as the Assistant Commander of the Rockville Barrack for three years. In 1994 he became a licensed Certified Public Accountant and was assigned to the Budget and Finance Section, overseeing the department’s budget. Mr. Norman spent approximately six years as the Commander of the Budget and Finance Section of the Maryland State Police.

After retiring from the State Police in 2005, Mr. Norman became the Director of Administration for the Office of Administrative Hearings, overseeing the budget, all financial operations, procurement, human resources, building security, and fleet management, a position he held for eight years.

Mr. Norman holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Loyola College, is a Certified Public Accountant, and is an associate member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. He served as Treasurer for the Maryland Troopers Association and has been an active community volunteer. Mr. Norman resides with his wife and daughter in Carroll County and has two adult sons.

Term: August 1, 2023—July 31, 2027

• Chair, Audit Committee
• Vice-Chair, Investment Committee

Mia N. Pittman, CFA, is a gubernatorial appointee to the Board of Trustees of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System.

With 30 years of experience in the financial services industry, Trustee Pittman is currently appointed as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Risk Management and Regulatory Affairs for the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In this role, she serves as the Chief Risk Officer for FHA’s $1.4 trillion insured mortgage portfolio.

Immediately prior to joining FHA, Trustee Pittman served as chief credit review officer for National Cooperative Bank (NCB), a $3 billion mission lending bank based in Arlington, Va.  Before NCB, she worked for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as a bank examiner specializing in the review of community bank loan portfolios across the State of Maryland. Over the course of her career, Trustee Pittman has worked for community, regional and large financial institutions.

Designated a Chartered Financial Analyst in August 2000, Trustee Pittman has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s of Business Administration in Finance from Temple University, and a Master’s of Arts in Human and Organizational Learning from The George Washington University.

Trustee Pittman was also a member of the Chase Brexton Health Care, Inc., Board of Directors from January 2019 to December 2020 and served as board treasurer, finance committee chair and member of the strategic planning committee. Lastly, Trustee Pittman served as the inaugural vice chair of the Financial Advisory Committee overseeing the Prince George’s County Economic Development Incentive Fund from its formation in 2012 to 2020.

Term: August 1, 2025—July 31, 2029

• Member, Audit Committee
• Member, Investment Committee

Vickrant Puri was elected to the Board of Trustees by active and retired members of the Teachers’ Systems.

A personal finance teacher for Baltimore County Public Schools, Trustee Puri has received numerous accolades including Teachers Association of Baltimore County Rookie Teacher of the Year and Maryland State Department of Education Teacher of Promise. He is a National Board Certified Teacher.

Previously, Trustee Puri worked in banking in various positions from teller to management. He holds a Master of Arts in teaching from the University of Maryland Global Campus.

Mr. Puri and his wife reside in Baltimore County with their two children.

Term: July 1, 2025—June 30, 2029

• Member, Administrative Committee
• Chair, Corporate Governance and Securities Litigation Committee

Vernon A. Reid, Jr., is a gubernatorial appointee to the Board of Trustees of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System.

Trustee Reid is a retired investment professional. He was a Vice-President at T. Rowe Price from 1977-1987 and 1999-2018. His experience and expertise is primarily in the area of fixed income portfolio trading and management. During the intermediate period, Mr. Reid served as principal partner of V. A. Reid & Associates, a fixed income asset management firm. He has served as a board member at Harford Mutual Insurance Group since 2019, contributing his extensive experience in investment and asset management.

In addition to his role at Harford Mutual, Trustee Reid serves on the Boards of Baltimore City Public School System Board of Commissioners, the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Baltimore Educational Scholarship Trust (BEST). His past service was as Vice-President of the T. Rowe Price Foundation (Treasurer), The Walters Art Museum and the Baltimore City Board of Finance, respectively. He is also a proud graduate of the Greater Baltimore Committee – Leadership (1991) and Maryland Leadership (1993) programs.

Trustee Reid attended the United States Naval Academy, holds a B.S. in business administration from Towson State College (Towson University), and a M.B.A., with a concentration in finance, from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

A member of New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland, Mr. Reid is married and the father of two sons.

Term: August 1, 2023—July 31, 2027

• Chair, Compensation and Staffing Committee
• Member, Corporate Governance and Securities Litigation Committee
• Member, Investment Committee

Michelle RhodesBrown is a gubernatorial appointee to the Board of Trustees of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System.

Trustee RhodesBrown serves as the Chief Financial Officer at the Walters Art Museum. While there, she has championed the ongoing diversity and inclusion related investment initiatives and their expansion into Socially Responsible and Impact Investing which align the investments of the endowment with the strategic priorities of the museum.

Trustee RhosedBrown came to the Walters with her BSE in Mechanical Engineering & Applied Mechanics from the University of Pennsylvania and her MBA from the prestigious Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She began her career in finance as a Senior Equity Analyst for Holland Capital Management in Chicago. In 2006, she moved to Profit Investment Management, a Silver Spring, Md., based investment management firm where she moved quickly from Senior Equity Analyst to Senior Vice President, Client Portfolio Manager in 2009. From there she headed to Integra LifeSciences in N.J. and then on to Biegel Waller Investment Advisory Services in Columbia, Md., providing financial advisory services and solutions to high-net-worth clients.

Trustee RhodesBrown has held positions in not-for-profit institutions which include National Finance Chair for the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Based in Washington, D.C., this global, nonprofit organization’s purpose is to uplift African American communities throughout the world. She also has served as the Interim Controller for St. John’s Parish Day School located in Ellicott City and has held several board level roles in a variety of nonprofit organizations including Delta Research Education Foundation (D.C.).

Term: July 1, 2023—June 30, 2027

• Member, Investment Committee
• Member, Compensation and Staffing Committee

Tarrus Richardson is a gubernatorial appointee to the Board of Trustees of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System.

Trustee Richardson is the founder and CEO of IMB which was started in 2010. He has 25 years of private equity experience, has invested over $500 million of capital and completed over 20 platform buyouts and add-on acquisitions.

Prior to IMB, Trustee Richardson co-founded ICV Partners, a $440 million minority-owned private equity firm from 1998-2010 and worked at JLL Partners, a private equity firm with over $2 billion of AUM, and Citibank (formerly Salomon Brothers).

Trustee Richardson is the founder of the Council of Urban Professionals (CUP), a top leadership development and networking organization based in New York and Los Angeles and a founding board chair of All Star Code, a leading non-profit focused on helping boys of color code.

Trustee Richardson received a BS in Accounting from Purdue University (where he has served as the Purdue Black Alumni President and as Student Body President) and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Robert Toigo Fellow.

Term: July 1, 2021–June 30, 2025

• Chair, Administrative Committee
• Vice-Chair, Audit Committee
• Vice-Chair, Compensation and Staffing Committee
• Member, Corporate Governance and Securities Litigation Committee

Robert F. Sandlass, Jr., is a gubernatorial appointee to the Board of Trustees of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System.

Trustee Sandlass has served as Harford County Treasurer since 2014. In addition to his duties as the county’s chief financial officer, he also chairs the Boards of Trustees for the county’s Sheriff Office Pension Plan (SOPP) for correctional officers, Length of Service Award Program (LOSAP) for volunteer firefighters and Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) for retiree health care.

Mr. Sandlass’ prior experience includes being the Budget Bureau Chief and the Supervisor of Fiscal and Policy Analysis for the local governments of Carroll and Baltimore Counties, respectively. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Hampden-Sydney College and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Baltimore. Trustee Sandlass is the Past-President for the Maryland Government Finance Officers Association. He also serves on the Budget and Finance Committee of the Maryland Association of Counties and the State of Maryland’s Next-Gen 911 Commission.

Raised in between Aberdeen and Bel Air, he currently resides in Havre de Grace.

Ex Officio member of the Board since October 22, 2025

• Administrative Committee, Member
• Compensation and Staffing Committee, Member
• Corporate Governance and Securities Litigation Committee, Member
• Investment Committee, Member

Yaakov “Jake” Weissmann is the Acting Secretary of the Maryland Department of Budget and Management. In this role, he is an ex officio member of the Board of Trustees of the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System.

Trustee Weissman previously served as Vice President for Government Relations and Community Affairs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), leading efforts to strengthen relationships with policymakers and secure key operating and capital funding. Before joining UMBC, he served as Assistant Chief Administrative Officer for Montgomery County, where he coordinated economic development and oversaw departments including environmental protection, housing and community affairs, permitting services, and transportation.

Earlier in his career, Trustee Weissmann spent more than a decade in the Maryland State Senate, including as Chief of Staff to multiple Senate Presidents, where he managed policy, personnel, and major initiatives spanning the state budget, tax policy, health care, and education.

Trustee Weissmann holds a law degree from the University of Baltimore School of Law, a master’s in social work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and a bachelor’s in social work and psychology from UMBC.

September 9, 2025—Present

Jonathan Martin has served as Chief Deputy Treasurer of Maryland since 2022. With more than 20 years of experience in state government finance and operations, he leads the day-to-day management of the State Treasurer’s Office and its nine divisions. In this role, Mr. Martin advises Treasurer Dereck Davis on legislative policy, new technologies, long-term operational challenges, and strategic planning.

Mr. Martin previously served in the Office of Budget Analysis at the Maryland Department of Budget and Management, where he was responsible for developing and managing the state’s $52 billion budget. He led the development of annual budget frameworks and crafted innovative solutions to help state leaders address complex fiscal challenges. During his tenure, Mr. Martin oversaw the design and implementation of the Budget and Revenue System (BARS), a new statewide budget system that replaced Maryland’s 30-year-old platform, modernizing business processes and training users across agencies.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Martin worked for the Maryland Department of Legislative Services, where he provided budget and policy recommendations to the General Assembly, including developing revenue options, preparing estimates, and managing policy research initiatives.

Mr. Martin holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Eastern Mennonite University.