As of February 15, 2012, our General Partner had three named executive officers, or NEOs, and three
additional employees. All of these employees are solely dedicated to our operations and management, except
our President and Chief Executive Officer, or CEO, who devotes more than 90% of his time to our operations
and management. The General Partner has not entered into employment agreements with any of our executive
officers. The compensation committee of our General Partner’s board of directors establishes the compensation
program for these employees.
Compensation Committee Responsibilities
The compensation committee is comprised of directors of our General Partner and had four members as of
February 15, 2012. The compensation committee’s responsibilities include, among other duties, the following:
• annually review the Partnership’s goals and objectives relevant to compensation of the CEO and other
NEOs;
• annually evaluate the CEO’s performance in light of the Partnership’s goals and objectives, and approve
the compensation levels for the CEO and other NEOs;
• periodically evaluate the terms and administration of the Partnership’s short-term and long-term
incentive plans to assure that they are structured and administered in a manner consistent with the
Partnership’s goals and objectives;
• periodically evaluate incentive compensation and equity-related plans and consider amendments if
appropriate;
• retain and terminate any compensation consultant to be used to assist in the evaluation of director, CEO
or other NEO compensation;
• perform other duties as deemed appropriate by the General Partner’s board of directors; and
• annually review the compensation of the Non-Employee Directors.
The actions of the compensation committee are ultimately considered and approved by the General
Partner’s board of directors.
Compensation Philosophy
Our compensation program is structured to provide the following benefits:
• attract, retain and reward talented executive officers and key management employees by providing total
compensation competitive with that of other executive officers and key management employees
employed by publicly traded limited partnerships of similar size or in similar lines of business;
• motivate executive officers and key management employees to achieve strong financial and operational
performance;
• emphasize performance-based compensation, balancing short-term and long-term results;
• reward individual performance; and
• encourage a long-term commitment to the Partnership by requiring target levels of unit ownership.
Methodology — Advisors and Peer Companies
The compensation committee reviews data from market surveys provided by independent consultants to
assess the competitive position with respect to base salary, annual short-term incentives and long-term incentive
compensation. With respect to NEO compensation, the compensation committee also considers individual
performance, levels of responsibility, skills and experience. In 2011, we engaged the services of BDO USA,
LLP, or BDO, a compensation consultant, to conduct a study to assist us in establishing overall compensation
packages for our NEOs. We consider BDO to be independent of the Partnership and therefore the work
performed by BDO does not create a conflict of interest. The BDO study was based on compensation as
reported in the annual reports on Form 10-K for a group of peer companies with a similar tax status, and the
2011 Towers Watson General Industry Executive Compensation Database, or the Towers Watson database.
174