Elevator Constructors retiree recognized for a lifetime of leadership at national convention

October 22, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Terri Stave accepts the 2026 Tradeswomen Build Nations Lifetime Achievement Award in Houston. (photo courtesy NABTU)

Terri Stave almost skipped this year’s Tradeswomen Build Nations convention. Instead, she came home with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the nation’s largest annual gathering of union tradeswomen in Houston last month.

The award, presented Oct. 11 in front of about 5,000 conventiongoers, came as a surprise to Stave. The retired member of Elevator Constructors (IUEC) Local 9 said she was overwhelmed by the moment, given that her mother had died just nine days before.

But it came as no surprise to people who have worked alongside Stave in the field, at the union hall or in her advocacy efforts with Women Building Success, a labor-backed nonprofit organization that promotes Minnesota tradeswomen.

“Terri’s contributions go far beyond the work she has done as a business representative,” Local 9 Business Manager Ryan Parkos said. “She has helped shape our local union, strengthened our trade and created a legacy that will continue to influence generations of elevator constructors for years to come.”

Stave became the first woman sworn in as business agent of an IUEC local – not only Local 9, but anywhere in the U.S. and Canada – after winning an election in 2015. More recently, she became the first female member to retire out of Local 9.

Throughout her career and even into retirement, Parkos said, Stave sought opportunities to help other women thrive in the construction trades, too.

“Terri Stave’s legacy is about more than being the first,” Parkos said. “It is about what that first represents, the doors it opens, the example it sets and the opportunities it creates for those who follow. History will remember her achievement, but the true measure of its impact will be seen in the women who enter our trade, the members who step into leadership and the generations of elevator constructors who benefit from a union that continues to grow stronger and more inclusive.”

Stave, who lives in Baldwin, Wis., reflected on her career, the challenges facing women working in the trades and what the national recognition means to her in this interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.

UA: How did you find out you were going to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award?

TS: I didn’t find out until there were 5,000 people sitting there. It was a big plenary in a great big room with over 5,000 women and advocates in attendance, and Sean McGarvey (president of North America’s Building Trades Unions) is the guy who gave me the award.

UA: You didn’t know you had been nominated?

TS: I did not. I wasn’t going to go this year because my mother passed away, but I didn’t get around to canceling my flight. I’d talked to my mother two weeks before, and my mother knows I’ve gone every year since 2014. I told her I was going to cancel my flight, and she told me I should go. I said, “We’ll see, mom.”

My mother took a turn pretty fast. We called hospice on Wednesday, they brought the bed Thursday and she passed away on Friday. So I talked to my siblings, and they said why don’t you just go because there’s nothing you can do here right now. And I thought it would probably be good to get away for a bit.

(photo courtesy NABTU)

UA: The emotions must have been overwhelming. Did you have to say something?

TS: It was almost like I couldn’t keep it together. They give you the podium, and I’m like, “Oh my God.” The conference center is huge – they can’t have it at a hotel any more, it’s gotten too big. I thanked NABTU, I thanked the IUEC and then I kind of broke down and told them that my mother had passed away. It was pretty emotional, pretty overwhelming, but what an honor. You have so many people who could be chosen, and they chose me.

UA: What kind of an influence was your mother on your career path?

TS: My mother had two girls that were both in the elevator trades. My older sister was also a union mechanic for 15 years. My mother was very supportive, and my father was a union carpenter. She taught me to have a great work ethic, and always wanted us to help others. And that’s what you’re doing as a business agent.

UA: Looking back, what made you want to serve your local as an agent?

TS: I had started going to meetings seven or eight years earlier, and got my start as the door warden. That’s a position nobody wants, right? I ran for door warden and got to meet people, and then it’s, “Why don’t you run for executive board?” I served two terms there and became the chair, and it was actually the business manager at the time, Dave Osrud, who said, “Why don’t you run for business rep?”

I never looked at anything with the elevator trade as being the only female. I just went and did my job. So when I ran for business rep and beat the incumbent by quite a few votes, there were some situations where I didn’t look at it that way but other people did. I didn’t know I was the first female until after I got the role. Dave Osrud is like, “I think you’re the first female. You know you’re going to go to meetings and be the only female in the room?” And I told him it’s been that way my whole career. That was nothing new to me.

UA: Were there challenges?

TS: I did have a tough time. People came out of the woodwork after I got in that role, and I heard things like, they didn’t want a woman running the local and whatever. I couldn’t fight that. I couldn’t fight being a female. And I figured that I knew how to fix elevators when I went in there, so I just went back and fixed elevators.

At the time I was very angry about it.  But you know what? I pulled up my bootstraps, and I went to Tradeswomen Build Nations the year after that just to show the young generation coming in that if you get knocked down, you just pull yourself back up and keep going. I think that was probably the most important conference that I went to.

UA: Spaces like Tradeswomen Build Nations reflect an intentional investment from Building Trades unions like yours in making their organizations more welcoming and diverse. At a time when a lot of organizations are pulling back from those investments, why does this work remain important?

TS: If you can do the job, why wouldn’t a woman want to have the great income, the great benefits? The trades give opportunities to women and men to live a great life, a comfortable life with great benefits and great pay. If you work hard and go to work every day, you can succeed. It shouldn’t matter if you’re male, female, black, white. The trades offer a career.

By having things like Tradeswomen Build Nations, you meet people who are the only woman in their local. It gives the women an avenue to communicate and ask questions and find information they might be too afraid to ask their business manager. It makes them feel like they’re not alone.

UA: When did you feel like you knew you belonged?

TS: When I started, I was 19 years old. I think it takes you a good 10 years until you go, “I think I’ve got this. I can fix an elevator.” Yes, I ran across problems being a female in the trades, but I tried to never take it home. I figured I had just as much right to be there and work hard as the next person. I don’t even know that I ever wanted to quit when I was young. I did as a business agent, though. You work all day on an elevator, and you can see what you fixed. You work all day as an agent – on the phones, answering emails – and then you go, what’d I do today? There are no thank-you’s.

UA: Colleagues say your leadership has made the craft more inclusive. How have you tried to do that, and what work remains to be done?

TS: I think just going to meetings. Just being there, that’s half the battle. But I would approach any of the apprentices – I don’t care if it’s male or females. I think people see you, and communicating with people is the best thing you can do. I want them to see that someone can start and finish and have a career in the elevator trade. I want them to think, “Well, if Terri can do it …”

– Michael Moore, UA editor

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Tradeswomen honored at local ceremony as Trump halts efforts to diversify industry

July 23, 2025 by

Union tradespeople from across Minnesota gathered at a White Bear Lake banquet facility June 5 to celebrate winners of the 2025 Women Building Success Awards, which recognize women forging careers in an industry long dominated by men.

Minnesota Building Trades unions founded Women Building Success (WBS) in 2017 to recognize and promote the achievements of women in their ranks, in the hopes of drawing more.

Experts have long argued that attracting more women to the construction trades would help reduce broader pay disparities, as skilled tradespeople – particularly union members – earn family-sustaining wages with access to health and pension benefits.

The kind of outreach, community-building, mentorship and support that WBS offers women in construction is critical to getting women to enter the skilled trades – and keeping them there, experts say.

Initiatives like WBS and Tradeswomen Build Nations, launched by North America’s Building Trades Unions 15 years ago, have helped drive an increase the number of women working in construction, by nearly 30% between 2018 and 2023, according to Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

But federally funded programs that look to build on that success face an uncertain future. Earlier this year, the National Taskforce on Tradeswomen’s Issues and five Building Trades unions issued a joint statement calling on Congress to maintain funding for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau and the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) program.

Both the Women’s Bureau and WANTO have been “instrumental” in creating pathways for women to enter male-dominated fields like construction, the organizations say, particularly in supporting pre-apprenticeship programs, which create opportunities to try out a trade before fully committing.

But since President Trump took office in January, the Labor Department has terminated WANTO grants, and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s budget request for 2026 would zero out funding for the Women’s Bureau, which she called a “relic of the past.”

WBS, self-funded by unions, isn’t likely going anywhere – and that’s a good thing for local tradeswomen, including these 2025 award winners, profiled below.

Apprentice of the Year

Ironworkers Local 512 apprentice Michaela Oelkers, 29, began welding at 18, earning a Certified Welding Inspector credential on her own time while working two jobs. When her boss at a non-union shop told her they didn’t need another CWI on staff, Oelkers acted on a friend’s suggestion to check out the Ironworkers.

Pete Teigland, the local’s apprenticeship training director, is glad she did. “Michaela represents everything we look for in an apprentice ironworker,” he said. “She has a great attitude, is hard working and wants to be good at whatever task is laid in front of her.”

The award came as a surprise to the third-year apprentice from Baldwin, Wis., but she left the awards ceremony feeling “hyped up,” she said.

“The women are all so positive and couldn’t be more supportive. I wanted to know, are there tips and tricks for how to keep your mindset so focused? And how the hell did they do it for so long?”

Oelkers said being the only woman on a jobsite can be “a pain in the ass sometimes,” but she keeps her sense of humor.

“I’m not going to lie, they’re big and burly, and frankly they’re kind of gross,” she said. “But the men I’ve worked with have been so good and willing to teach the next generation (of apprentices), so there’s an upside and a downside. And hey, women can be hormonal and annoying as well.”

Journey Worker of the Year

Heidi Loesch, 61, of Shell Lake, Wis., retired after a nearly 40-year career as an operator two years ago. The member of Operating Engineers Local 49 didn’t take the traditional apprenticeship pathway, instead attending technical college in Staples after graduating from high school to gain the skills she would need as an operator.

Loesch had no idea Women Building Success existed until Melissa Vandal, a dispatcher with Local 49, asked if she could nominate Loesch for an award. At the ceremony, another woman who, like Loesch, worked for Bolander Construction approached Loesch’s daughter, Megan, to say she had been hearing about her mother for years.

“It was interesting to learn that you were kind of mentoring everybody along the way – whether you knew it or not,” Loesch said. “No women were in the field when I started – that I ran across anyway.”

What kept her going? “I just loved my job, and I was pretty good at it,” she said. “And there are a lot of guys out there that will tell you that, too. If I was going to worry about the guy-girl ratio, probably I wouldn’t have gotten out of vo-tech.”

Women’s Advocate

Rachel Malmer, a member of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 110 who works at the wastewater treatment plant in St. Paul, is blunt about what attracted her to the trade: “money and insurance.” But the 33-year-old from Bay City, Wis., has thrived in several roles since joining the union in 2017, volunteering with the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus and representing members on several committees.

As a member of the executive board, Malmer sees new apprentices and members being sworn into the union, and she makes a point of reaching out to women taking the oath.

“A lot of times you’re the only woman on the job site, and let’s just say some people suck,” Malmer said. “So having someone to talk through that or work through things – people who have experienced it and know different ways to navigate things – it helps. I want them to know that they have a support system.”

A self-described “behind-the-scenes person,” Malmer was not eager for her moment in the spotlight at the WBS awards. “I was mad,” she said. “I don’t like getting up in front of people, let alone talking in front of people or talking about myself, really. I’m just doing what I feel like people are supposed to do.”

Tradeswomen in Leadership

Two tradeswomen shared the leadership honor this year: Erica Hartse of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 34, and Colleen Bibeau, an instructor at the Laborers Training Center in Lino Lakes.

Hartse, a 32-year-old from Lindstrom, recently took an office job at Local 34 after working 10 years in the field, starting in 2014. That’s when she left her job as customer-service representative to join a pre-apprenticeship program. She joined Local 34 soon after, but said she wishes she had learned about career opportunities in the trades sooner.

“My biggest gripe is that it was never really posed as an option in high school, or maybe I would have taken a different path earlier on in life,” Hartse said. “Maybe I would have seen it as a viable option sooner.”

Hartse, who serves as Local 34’s vice president, called the experience of winning the WBS award “overwhelming but exciting.” She said she appreciates the organization’s work to create space for women in the trades. “Seeing people relatable to you is so important,” she said. “I can hear a guy talking about careers like this, but to have that real success story in front of you, then it’s real.”

Bibeau, who lives in North Branch, joined the Laborers in 1999. She was working two jobs and raising three kids on her own, with no child support. “My kids needed to have a mom more,” she said. “I needed more money.”

She worked in the field until 2013, when she applied for an instructor’s position at the training center, teaching safety on the job.

“I love getting to work with apprentices,” she said. “I get to see a lightbulb go off every week with my students.”

Now 59, Bibeau has seen firsthand the how the industry has changed to become more inclusive of women, and she hears about it from the apprentices who come through her classroom, too.

“I ask them all the time, ‘How many women are working with you guys?’” she said. “And there’s always multiple women on the jobsites, which I’m so happy to hear.”

This article appeared in the August 2025 issue of the Saint Paul Union Advocate.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Up for a challenge: Competitors test their skills at WBS Trade Games

December 10, 2024 by

Ashley Kula (L) and Anya Davis raced to finish Cement Masons Local 633’s challenge.

It wasn’t gold, silver or bronze, but there was plenty of metal in play during the Trade Games Challenge at St. Paul Pipefitters Local 455’s training center Nov. 21.

Hosted by Women Building Success (WBS) to celebrate National Apprenticeship Week, the friendly, hands-on competition drew nearly 200 participants in its second year.

“This event has hands-on challenge activities for each trade,” WBS board member Jenny Winkelaar, director of workforce and community development for Operating Engineers Local 49, said. “It is a fun way to showcase what the trades have to offer.”

Competitors included apprentices, journey workers and community members with an interest in exploring careers in the union construction trades.

Cement Masons apprentice Grace Olson checked out her virtual paint job.

Participants walked from station to station on the shop floor, trying their hand at challenges sponsored by different local union apprenticeship programs. Each union designed the challenge to reflect their unique craft.

At booths hosted by Plumbers Local 34 and Sprinklerfitters Local 417, instructors timed competitors as they followed the instructions for connecting pieces of pipe into a “pipe guy.” Insulators Local 34 challenged competitors to affix insulation to the proper place on a pipe structure, like a puzzle.

Some Trade Games challenges pitted competitors against each other. Laborers Local 563 held wheelbarrow races. At Pipefitters Local 455’s station, it was a chain hoist race, with competitors racing to raise their large spool to the finish point fastest.

Madi Jennings, a fourth-year apprentice with the Insulators union, tied rebar at Ironworkers Local 512’s station, clocking the second-fastest time of the event’s early session. Local 512 training coordinator Erik Hansen said that it’s good for apprentices like Jennings to gain exposure to other crafts – and good for apprenticeship programs’ recruitment efforts, too.

“We’re hoping this kind of becomes a word-of-mouth thing,” Hansen said. “OK, you’re already in a trade, but maybe you know someone considering their options, and you tell them, ‘Hey, check out the Ironworkers.’”

For competitors like Matt Segal, who learned about the event from a friend, the Trade Games Challenge also served as a career fair. After working in the tech industry for a decade, he’s looking for a change.

“I’m exploring my options and seeing what’s out there,” Segal, 34, said after splitting a pair of chain hoist races – hosted by the Pipefitters – with IBEW Local 110 member Marisa McAndrew. “I like working with my hands, and I’d like to learn some skills that I can take with me – that are applicable in my home and anywhere I go.

“It’s been exciting to be here and talk not only to trades instructors, but tradespeople, too.”

Mahaila Houle (R), a career navigator with Operating Engineers Local 49, guided Plumbers Local 34 apprentice Karen Severson through the excavator event.
Dorlisa Squires (L), an apprentice with Local 49, and Glenda Tejada race to assemble a “pipe guy” at Sprinklerfitters Local 417’s challenge.
Rockett (R), who said she uses just one name, matched insulation with piping at Insulators Local 34’s station during the Trade Games Challenge.
Ironworkers Local 512’s Erik Hansen timed Madi Jennings, an Insulators apprentice, as she raced to tie rebar.

For most attendees, though, the primary objective was fun and fellowship.

At Cement Masons Local 633’s station, that meant playing in the “mud,” as competitors raced to flatten and level wet cement, edge the sides and install control joints – the cuts in walkways or other slabs that allow for movement due to temperature or moisture.

Local 633 apprentice Grace Olson was not tempted to leave her craft behind after trying the virtual spraypainting booth, hosted by the Finishing Trades Institute, Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District Council 82’s training arm.

“I think I did OK, but I probably could have done better,” the third-year apprentice laughed. “I think I over-sprayed it a little.”

But Plumbers Local 34 apprentice Karen Severson joked that she “might switch trades” after climbing into the excavator that Operating Engineers Local 49 parked inside the Pipefitters’ training hall, challenging participants to pick up and transfer a flagpole from one road cone to another. “That was fun,” Severson said.

WBS was founded in 2017 to recognize and promote the achievements of women in union construction trades. WBS hosts an annual awards ceremony, an apprenticeship photo contest and other events.

– Michael Moore, Union Advocate editor

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Women Building Success celebrates tradeswomen at awards ceremony

June 3, 2022 by

WBS award winners, L to R, include (back) Claire Boeke, Karin Dahlin, Dani Moss, Rosey Grab, (front) Marissa Goodsky, Brittney Bray and Robin Chuhel.

Union tradeswomen and labor leaders gathered June 1 in White Bear Lake for the Women Building Success Awards, a celebration of local apprentices, journey workers and advocates for women pursuing careers in the construction trades.

Women Building Success (WBS) is a Minnesota organization founded in 2017 to recognize and promote the achievements of women in union construction trades. The awards ceremony is among its biggest events of the year, said Barb Pecks, a WBS board member and member of the North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters.

“We do have amazing women out there, and we definitely don’t recognize them often enough,” said Pecks, who emceed the ceremony.

In a recorded video, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar congratulated the 44 women nominated for WBS awards, and she praised WBS and local construction unions for their ongoing efforts to support tradeswomen and make the unionized construction industry a more welcoming place for women to work.

“When our tradeswomen succeed, our economy succeeds,” Klobuchar said. “And when our economy succeeds, America succeeds.”

WBS board members honor Terri Stave with a Lifetime Achievement award. Pictured (L to R) are Barry Davies, Carrie Robles, Barb Pecks, Stave, Jenny Winkelaar and Jennifer Mudge.

Lifetime Achievement

WBS presented a Lifetime Achievement award to Terri Stave, a retired member, instructor and officer with Elevator Constructors Local 9 who serves on the WBS Board of Directors.

Throughout her career, Stave was a trailblazer both within Local 9 and the International Union of Elevator Constructors (IUEC). In 2016, she became the first woman sworn in as business agent of an IUEC local, and she was one of two women who attended the union’s international convention that year. She recently became the first female member to retire out of Local 9.

“When I started as a 19-year-old, and I just went to work, kept my head down and went home,” Stave said. But after attending the Tradeswomen Build Nations conference in 2014 and finding only four other elevator constructors, she said, “I decided we’ve got to do something about this.”

Stave started a Facebook group for women in the IUEC, which has grown to nearly 300 members and provides support and connections to organizations like Tradeswomen Build Nations.

IBEW 110 Business Manager Jamie McNamara introduces Advocate of the Year Robin Chuhel (L).

Advocate of the Year

Robin Chuhel of St. Paul-based Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 110 received the Advocate of the Year award, with honorable mention going to Rosey Grab, an apprentice with Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 49.

Chuhel, an Air Force veteran, joined Local 110 in 1994, and she is a union steward in her current job with the St. Paul Public Schools, “a place for her to recruit, train and help retain as many women in our field as possible,” Local 110 Business Manager Jamie McNamara said.

Chuhel also has served nearly 20 years in a leadership role with the union’s apprenticeship program, often advocating for better pay and benefits for apprentices, McNamara said.

“When Robin would engage apprentices who were women, she would take them under her wing, advising, protecting and teaching the apprentices like they were her own family,” McNamara said. “She has not only taught the women in our local how to be better in our industry, she has taught the whole industry how to be better for women.”

Journey Workers of the Year Marissa Goodsky holds her award during a photo with Local 633 Business Manager Dave Schutta and her sister Alexa.

Journey Worker of the Year

Marissa Goodsky, a member of Cement Masons Local 633, received Journey Worker of the Year honors, with honorable mention going to Brittney Bray of IUOE Local 49.

Goodsky is a graduate of Local 633’s summer training program, offered in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Transportation since 2010, that introduces young workers from area tribal nations to careers in the concrete and cement industry.

Goodsky “stood out in that program with her energy and attention to detail,” Local 633 Business Manager Dave Schutta said, and in 2015 she began an apprenticeship with the local. Now, she serves as an instructor in the very program that introduced her to the union.

“She’s come full circle,” Schutta said. “What a mentor she’s going to be.”

Apprentice of the Year

Karin Dahlin of Minneapolis St. Cloud Pipefitters Local 539 was named Apprentice of the Year. The overwhelming number of outstanding apprentices nominated for the award prompted WBS to name two honorable mention winners: Dani Moss of Laborers (LIUNA) Local 563 and Claire Boeke of the Carpenters.

In addition to the award, winners in each category received a $300 honorarium and a set of Milwaukee tools. Honorable mention recipients received $100 honorariums.

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March events: Expo to connect women with pathways into trades

March 1, 2021 by

Photo by Bre Ana Henry, an apprentice with Ironworkers Local 512.

Women in Construction Week runs from March 7 to 13, and local tradeswomen, in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI), will celebrate with a virtual event showcasing career opportunities available in the unionized trades.

The Women Building Success Info Expo is open to women statewide who are interested in learning more about construction careers. The free event will run from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. March 11, and participants can join by phone, mobile device or a computer with internet access.

The expo will begin with a panel discussion featuring representatives from the DLI, Apprenticeship Minnesota, Building Strong Communities and Women Building Success. Local tradeswomen will share their firsthand experiences with the earn-as-you-learn apprenticeship model and working in the construction industry.

After the panel, guests will connect individually with registered apprenticeship programs and event sponsors using interactive chat or video technology. They can even apply for an apprenticeship on the spot.

Registration is required. Find a link at metroregioninteractive.easyvirtualfair.com.

Labor Education Service rolls out spring courses

Enrollment is open for spring courses offered by the University of Minnesota’s Labor Education Service.

Offerings include “Basic Steward Training” and “Bargaining from Margin to Center,” as well as an abolitionist study group.

Registration is required. Click here to learn more.

History comes alive at the Freedom Library

The nonprofit, independent East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul is a hub of labor-history programming. To receive event notifications in your inbox, sign up for the newsletter.

Of note this month is a March 6 virtual discussion of Donna Haverty-Stacke’s book “The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic, Socialist, Feminist.” It’s part of the ESFL’s History Revealed series, a partnership with the Ramsey County Historical Society.

Additionally, the ESFL is connecting students working on National History Day projects with mentors. To line up a Zoom session, email info [at] eastsidefreedomlibrary [dot] org.

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Trades celebrate Women Build Success awards

February 27, 2020 by

Pictured after the Women Build Success awards ceremony are (L to R) Megan Ringwelski, Nancy Leppink, Peggy Flanagan, Amy Peterson, Clara Schiller, Connie Smallman, Rachel Malmer and Derra Range.

Union tradeswomen celebrated the most badass among them at a spirited awards ceremony in Minneapolis last night.

“Six women, selected from dozens of nominees for apprentice, journey worker and advocate of the year, took home honors at the Women Building Success Awards Ceremony.

Board members for Women Building Success include Jenny Winkelaar, Operating Engineers Local 49; Jennifer Mudge, IBEW Local 292; Carrie Robles, Laborers Local 563; Matt Fairbanks, Sheet Metal Workers Local 10; Tasha Lawrence Plumbers Local 34; Barry Davies, Ironworkers Local 512; Teri Stave, Elevator Constructors Local 9; and Barb Pecks, North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters

Two high-profile guests of honor handed out the awards: Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry Commissioner Nancy Leppink and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who encouraged tradeswomen in the room to continue building each other up, both on the job site and with events like the awards ceremony.

“Empowered women empower women,” Winkelaar said.

Advocate of the Year

Connie Smallman, a member of Operating Engineers Local 49 in her 33rd year working construction, received Advocate of the Year honors. Smallman co-founded Local 49’s women’s group, the first of its kind among Operating Engineers locals. Since then, she has helped other unions across the country launch women’s groups of their own.

“I used to be the only girl on the job site,” Smallman said. “The last job I worked on, I had the pleasure of working with over 50 tradeswomen. How cool is that?”

Honorable mention in the category went to Amy Peterson, a member of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 82. Terry Nelson, the council’s business manager, said Peterson works as an apprenticeship instructor with the Finishing Trades Institute of the Upper Midwest, and has trained hundreds of union apprentices in drywall finishing and thousands in workplace safety.

“She is always there to help other women,” Nelson said. “Amy has worked hard to get where she is, and she is always there for other women to help them make their way in the trade.”

Journey Worker of the Year

St. Paul Steamfitters-Pipefitters Local 455’s Clara Schiller took home Journey Worker of the Year honors. Jim Sloan, a business representative with the local, said Schiller “consistently proves to be one of our local’s most vocal and dedicated members.”

Schiller puts in extra time both with the local, as an apprenticeship instructor, and in the community, exposing underrepresented communities to opportunities in the union trades. “She embodies what it means to be a union tradeswoman,” Sloan said.

Schiller offered words of encouragement to union tradeswomen in the banquet room. “Remember your heart out there on the job,” she said. “Remember who you are.”

Honorable mention in the category went to Derra Range of LIUNA Laborers Local 563. Sixteen years after leaving her job as a hairstylist, Range now works as a foreman on the job site, Local 563 Business Manager Joe Fowler said.

Range told Fowler she earned the respect of her all-male crews the old fashioned way: “by working my ass off five times harder than most everyone else.”

Apprentice of the Year

Megan Ringwelski, in her fourth year of training with Sprinklerfitters Local 417, was named Apprentice of the Year. As an example of the dedication she brings to the craft, Local 417 Business Manager Trinidad Uribe III said Ringwelski recently continued working into the eighth month of her pregnancy.

“They literally had to pull her away from the tools,” Uribe said. “She’s a hard worker and dedicated, to say the least.”

Honorable mention in the category went to Rachel Malmer, a member of Local 110 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Local 110’s business manager, Jamie McNamara, said he nominated Malmer for the award, in part, because she has volunteered in support of the union’s political program – “phone banking, door knocking” – while simultaneously working toward her journey-level certification.

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