SMART members have an excellent opportunity to further their careers in the construction industry via Rowan University’s Bachelor of Arts in Construction Management program, which has been endorsed by North America’s Building Trades Unions and is specifically intended for members pursuing career development in the building trades. This online program is designed for pre-apprentices, apprentices and journeypersons looking to gain the leadership and technical skills needed to plan, execute, monitor and control the construction process.
Some of the perks:
Courses are entirely online, providing affordable, accessible learning that members can tailor to their schedules
Union apprenticeships and specialized training can fulfill general education and elective requirements, accelerating degree completion
The program includes three stackable certificates: Fundamentals of Construction Management, Project Management and Leadership (completing the full degree is not required)
A specialized tuition rate is available to all NABTU affiliated unions
As our industry continues to evolve, leadership development will be more crucial than ever — for members’ careers and for our union.
When SMART Local 5 (East Tennessee and North Carolina) member Steven Ruger became an organizer in April 2023, the local had around 1,100 members — the majority in Tennessee — with 500 sheet metal workers needed to take on several approaching N.C.-based megaprojects.
“I wanted to become an organizer to help build and grow Local 5,” said Ruger, who first joined the trade in July 2011 with SMART Local 112 (Elmira, N.Y.) before moving to North Carolina years later. “To give others the opportunity I had and build solidarity in North Carolina.”
By all conventional measures, he’s succeeding. Today, thanks in large part to aggressive organizing conducted by Local 5 and spearheaded by Ruger, the local has more than 1,500 members, and the size of Local 5’s North Carolina membership has increased by more than 60%.
Megaprojects drive growth
Back in 2023, three megaprojects in Local 5’s jurisdiction — a Wolfspeed chip plant, a Toyota battery plant and a VinFast plant — put huge workforce demands on signatory contractors. That meant Ruger had to get straight to work once he started his new job as an organizer, training with now-retired International Organizer Kevin Mulcahy while simultaneously building a person-of-interest list for the local.
“Kevin and I researched nonunion fabrication shops in Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro, found where workers left these shops and placed yard signs at high-traffic intersections,” Ruger recalled.
In September 2023, the International put on an organizing blitz in Raleigh, North Carolina, to help staff the megaprojects, with organizers undergoing two days of training and two days of jobsite visits. There were four cars, with four organizers in each car, Ruger said — including one bilingual organizer per vehicle. He also had more than 500 palm cards printed, made up with a QR code that would direct users to a Local 5 landing page that explained megaprojects, pay scale, per diem, overtime and other facts about the union advantage.
Local 5 palm cardSteven Ruger
“We flooded jobsites, gas stations and supply houses with these cards,” Ruger said. “This was a huge success.”
The recruiting didn’t stop there. Ruger ran ads on Craigslist and Indeed, marketing the many perks of being a Local 5 sheet metal worker. The local has partnered with Guilford Technical Community College to help bring on two classes of 25 first-year sheet metal apprentices. And Ruger found great success stripping one of Local 5’s nonunion competitors, Environmental Air Systems.
“On a couple jobs, I stripped the foreman, and he brought his whole crew of 10-plus people with him,” he said.
Language isn’t a barrier to the union advantage
Ruger, Mulcahy and Local 5 knew that navigating potential Spanish-English language barriers would be key to any organizing success in the area. Along with the bilingual organizers brought in for the Raleigh blitz, Ruger worked with International Organizer Josh Garner and Strategic Research and Data Team Manager Kris Harmon to make sure the Local 5 landing page could be translated into Spanish. He even invested in translator ear buds in order to communicate with Spanish-speaking workers directly.
“I would meet these workers at Sheetz gas stations and our local union hall, explaining all the benefits of joining,” Ruger said. “I hired a few bilingual workers, and going forward they would help me relay information and assist with recruiting.”
Bad-faith employers often exploit language barriers to keep workers from organizing, collectively bargaining and speaking up about jobsite issues. That wasn’t the case at SMART signatory contractor Dynamic Systems, Inc. (DSI), which took on the Wolfspeed chip plant in Siler City, North Carolina. Thanks to their cooperation, all workers were put in a position to succeed — benefiting the employer as well.
“DSI worked with Local 5 and set up two orientations for workers, one in English and one in Spanish,” Ruger explained. “I would send all Spanish-speaking workers to the shop on Friday, and then DSI would report them to the jobsite for orientation in Spanish.”
The success achieved by Ruger and Local 5 marks a roadmap for SMART locals across North America. A wide variety of challenges lie ahead for our organization, from workforce demands to encroaching nonunion competition. But regardless of the nation, state or municipality of any given local, there’s at least one action we can always take: organize, organize, organize.
When Michael Harris chose the word “elevate” as the motivational theme for the International Training Institute (ITI) staff for 2025, he had no idea what was in store.
In March, Harris was hired as the new Funds executive director, and John Jackson, from Local 28 in New York, was chosen to take the helm as ITI administrator. Joe Potesta, former ITI field representative and welding specialist, stepped in as assistant to the ITI administrator. Craig Reehten, former ITI representative and TAB specialist, was hired to take over the NEMI administrator role this spring.
There are no changes to the SMOHIT administrative staff, and Aldo Zambetti remains as SMOHIT’s administrator.
“We have new administrators who are bringing new, fresh ideals and continuing the path forward,” Harris said. “Progress requires change sometimes, and we’re definitely bringing change in our own structure to better serve the industry.”
The position of assistant to the ITI administrator was in the works before McCallum’s retirement, and hiring Potesta and Jackson together ended up being perfectly timed, Harris said.
“I’ve admired this ITI team for a long time — everyone brings a wealth of experience and expertise to their positions — and I’m excited to now be a part of it,” Jackson said.
This revamped executive team brings their own unique energy to invigorate the mission established for all three funds: to better support and provide resources to JATCs and serve the members of the unionized sheet metal industry.
Reehten is ready to hit the ground running, as he looks forward to his new chapter at NEMI.
“Playing to our team’s strengths and ambitions and leaning into more collaboration with ITI and SMOHIT is exciting, because it will not only better serve NEMI’s stakeholders but benefit the industry as a whole,” Reehten said.
Harris said collaboration is key to “elevate” the Funds.
“My goal is to continue to bring the three funds closer together with the hope to eventually be seen as one collective team,” he said. “I’m excited to see what we can all accomplish together.”
The mid-2000s weren’t the easiest time for Brother Jeffery (JP) Caffee, now a Conductor for BNSF out of Local 465, (Gillette, Wyoming).
After serving in Iraq from December 2003 until February 2005, he found himself battling alcohol and narcotic addiction when he returned home.
Following treatment and looking for something to occupy his time, he tested out some new hobbies like golfing and fishing.
“When I came out of treatment, I found that I had a lot more time, energy, and money,” Brother Caffee reflected. “So I wanted to do something good with my life.”
Turning his lens toward the street
After exploring several different genres, including railroad, livestock, and wildlife photography, Brother Caffee realized that he was looking for something more.
Concerned that he might relapse, he reached out to people who he met during treatment and was surprised to find that not one of them were still clean.
Photo Credit: JP Caffee, Street Grunt Photography
That led to a sobering realization.
“I didn’t want to be a part of that, and I just sat there thinking about those people,” Brother Caffee said. “I could still see some of their faces and remember them.”
In particular, he remembers a man from Seattle who he says was a heroin addict but had a wonderful sense of humor and boundless energy.
Photo Credit: JP Caffee, Street Grunt Photography
“I thought of him banging heroin out on the street somewhere, and God knows if he’s even still alive,” he remembered. “That’s what kind of made me think ‘Why don’t I photograph that?”
Soulful portraits only possible with trust and rapport
That thought led Brother Caffee to pack a bag and head to Denver to photograph individuals experiencing homelessness.
Photo Credit: JP Caffee, Street Grunt Photography
But he didn’t want to just set up his equipment and convince people to let him tell their stories. He wanted to do it right.
“I immerse myself in the street environment, and I try to earn [my] way in and make friendships over time,” Brother Caffee explained. “People will start to trust you and you trust them. Then you start to photograph them when everybody’s good with it. I learned my lesson the hard way fairly quickly.”
Approaching 13 years of sobriety on August 3, the people that he’s met and the relationships that he’s built while traveling to photograph different communities has made a significant impact.
Photo Credit: JP Caffee, Street Grunt Photography
“It keeps me humble,” Brother Caffee said. “A lot of times people ask me ‘When you’re around all these drugs and alcohol, doesn’t that make you want to use?’ And no, it’s just the opposite. I’m reminded of why I don’t use.”
The union difference
Photo Credit: JP Caffee, Street Grunt Photography
Playing an equally important role in Brother Caffee’s recovery journey is joining the union nearly 20 years ago.
Growing up in a single-wide trailer in rural South Dakota, he watched both parents work jobs where they didn’t have the same security that he does as a SMART-TD member.
Photo Credit: JP Caffee, Street Grunt Photography
“Becoming a union member and having better wages and some job security and good health insurance and a pension…I think we have a lot of members that think that stuff is just everywhere, and they’re not real grateful for it and are quick to undermine it or let it go, but I definitely don’t.”
A member of Local 465 who has held several different positions, including serving as the Local’s Legislative Representative and the current Vice Local Chairperson of LCA 001A, he quickly saw that the union would play an important role in his life.
Photo Credit: JP Caffee, Street Grunt Photography
“I didn’t know anything about unions and being a union member and all that,” Brother Caffee said. “I right away took to it, and I knew that my life was going to be a lot better in a union, and it was and has remained so. It’s given me a job, good health insurance.”
Some of Brother Caffee’s photographs have even been featured in past SMART-TD calendars, which he says is a full-circle moment.
Photo Credit: JP Caffee, Street Grunt Photography
“It makes me happy to contribute something to an organization that has given my life so much.”
The Saturday before Easter, Local 17 apprentice Leiara Gonzalez-Guerra spearheaded a SMART Army event with fellow members and local officers to deliver food from a local food bank to homebound seniors in Brockton, Mass. That’s solidarity in action — great work, sister!
Local 49 won a huge victory for New Mexico sheet metal workers in April 2025, when Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a law that expanded prevailing wage to include offsite fabrication on public works projects. With the law’s definition of “off-site fabricators” — “those earning wages to fabricate heating, cooling, ventilation, or exhaust systems, or any prefabricated components or structures used in public works projects” — the law promises to benefit SMART members and signatory contractors statewide.
“The way this type of bill helps us grow our membership is, it increases our volume of market share by having equal wages across fabrication shops,” said Local 49 Business Manager and Financial Secretary-Treasurer Isaiah Zemke. “Everyone’s having to pay that same state prevailing wage for these public works projects.”
SMART members know better than anybody the problems that arise when bad-faith contractors bid on offsite fabrication work. In many places, even if a public works project pays prevailing wage or is covered by a project labor agreement, low-road contractors can submit bids on the fabrication work that takes place offsite, even if the ductwork being fabricated is for that prevailing wage job. That means union sheet metal fabricators and signatory contractors get undercut and lose out on work hours.
Local 49 members faced that exact issue in New Mexico, where the offsite fabrication loophole in the state’s Public Works Minimum Wage Act allowed out-of-state companies to secure fabrication work on public projects. Coming into the 2025 legislative session, Zemke and the local decided to take matters into their own hands.
“We started early on with developing an endorsement questionnaire process that was bipartisan,” Zemke explained. “It was sent out to all state reps, all state senators — Republican, Independent, Democrat, whatever party affiliation. Following that, we had an open house with everybody that we endorsed. We brought them into the house of labor, of sheet metal workers; we educated them on fabrication, educated them on what sheet metal workers do in the industry.”
From there, the local found their sponsors for the bill, securing commitments from leadership in the state House, Senate and the governor’s office.
“From there, we strapped our boots on and went and did the work of not only being expert witnesses, but also lobbying the bill in the state legislature here in 2025,” Zemke siad.
The early groundwork and constant advocacy paid off when Governor Lujuan Grisham signed the bill into law. While not a headline-making piece of legislation in the national media, it will help change the lives of SMART members and working families in New Mexico for the long term: ensuring SMART signatory contractors and sheet metal workers win more work, provide for their families and invest in their pensions.
From the jobsite to the capitol building, organizing is how we win!
Los Angeles is famous for its traffic. And a large part of that (in)famy is driven by the East Los Angeles Interchange, where Interstate 10 connects with United States Highway 101. Hundreds of thousands of drivers going to, from and through downtown L.A. connect via the two highways daily — including Local 105 member Margarito Martinez, who currently works night shifts as a foreman for Thermal Concepts in Chino, California.
That’s precisely where he was headed on May 9 at 4:40 p.m., when he happened to look out the window on his drive to work and see a woman experiencing a seizure behind the wheel.
“I’m not a doctor,” Martinez said. “I’m no nurse, but, you know, just doing all the [safety] training I’ve been doing all these years, even when I was in the apprenticeship, prepared me to see what was going on.”
Dashcam video shows Margarito Martinez and a fellow driver helping a woman who had a seizure while driving during rush hour in Los Angeles.
The traffic during rush hour on a weekday, Martinez explained, can be near gridlock. On May 9, as he commuted to work, cars were driving on the interchange at speeds under five miles per hour. That provided the ability to see more than usual.
“I noticed a lot of the cars were just going around a car that was acting weird,” Martinez recalled. “So as I got closer to the car, I looked over and I saw a lady foaming from her mouth. She just had a white pile of foam on her chest. And as I got closer, I looked over and it just kicked in for me. You know, I run work, I’m trained for this stuff, so instinct kicked in.”
None of the other drivers were stopping or taking action — but on the other side of the woman’s vehicle, Martinez locked eyes with the driver of another work truck.
“I don’t know who he was, but he had a passenger, and we made eye contact and we both agreed … we’ve got to help this lady,” he said.
Martinez and his fellow worker leapt into action. They jumped out of their respective vehicles and ran towards the woman’s car, at which point Martinez said he noticed the woman was “turning blue.” The car was still moving — as the other Good Samaritan tried to slow the car, Martinez pushed a window down.
“I tried opening the door, but she was unconscious. I shook her and she kind of looked surprised, looked at me, like, ‘what are you doing to me?’ And I said, I’m trying to save your life,” he described. “I told her, you’ve got to put your car in park. [But] … for some reason, her body seemed stuck. And she said, ‘oh my God, it’s happening again.’”
The woman started seizing, Martinez said: Her eyes rolled back and she began foaming at the mouth.
“That’s when I jumped more into the window,” he recounted.
Martinez was able to reach the door and open it, and the woman briefly regained consciousness. She tried to put the car in park but accidentally started to reverse instead; Martinez jumped back into the car and hit the emergency brake.
“That’s when she looked at me again. She said, ‘thank you so much, sir, but it’s going to happen again.’ And sure enough, she started seizing again,” he said.
Martinez held her head back to make sure she didn’t choke. Once the woman regained consciousness, he asked two women behind the car to call 911. The ambulance arrived shortly after, bringing the medical attention the woman needed.
Martinez had to leave when the ambulance came — “I can’t be late,” he remembered thinking.
But before he hit the road again, the paramedics told him that had he not acted, the woman could have crashed, been hit or simply not woken up.
Local 105 paid tribute to Martinez on Facebook, writing: “Margarito, your courage and dedication reflect the very best of Local 105. Your commitment to the safety and well-being of those around you — on and off the job — makes us incredibly proud. Thank you for your service to the community and for representing SMART Local 105 with such integrity. Keep leading by example!”
To Martinez, it was nothing heroic — it was simply a combination of union training and union values.
“I didn’t even think about myself to be honest. It was just: Help this lady out,” he reflected.
“All this training we do … it did do something. I did not panic … it felt like the right thing to do.”
James M. Weaver received his 50-year service award on March 14, 2025. Pictured with Brother Weaver is his son, James G. Weaver, retired member of Local 48; Brother Weaver’s grandson, Jonathan Atchison, Local 48 business agent; and Brother Weaver’s great-grandson, James C. Weaver, first-year apprentice of Local 48.
Donnie Dennis also received his 50-year service award on March 14, 2025. Pictured with Brother Dennis is Local 48 Business Manager Daniel Walden.
Local 48 also honored 70-year member Glen Roberson, who retired in 1995 and is now 92 years old. Pictured, from left to right: Glen’s son Jerry Roberson (40-year member of Local 48); Glen Roberson; and Glen’s other son Glen Roberson Jr. (40-year member of Local 48). The three Robersons represent 150 years of dedication and service to Local 48!
In 2024, SMART Local 9 worked tirelessly to push an indoor air quality in public schools bill through the Colorado state legislature and to Governor Jared Polis’s desk — only to see the governor veto the legislation, along with the work hours it would have created for SMART members.
The local could have accepted defeat. But Business Manager Jon Alvino and Political Director/Organizer Chaz Tedesco knew that HVAC work in public schools represented a golden opportunity for Colorado sheet metal workers, not to mention benefiting kids and educators — especially important at a time when continued federal funding for indoor air quality work is being threatened by Congress.
Local 9 members get out the vote for endorsed candidates, including Sheila Lieder, who helped ensure the passage of the HVAC in public schools law.
Their resolve paid off in June 2025, when Gov. Polis signed a new version of the bill that requires school districts to thoroughly assess and upgrade their HVAC systems using certified contractors when spending federal infrastructure or education funds, and to provide for regular maintenance and inspection of HVAC systems following installation.
“After the governor’s veto of last year’s bill, I had serious reservations about running something similar again,” Alvino said. “But I owe a great deal of thanks to Representatives Sheila Lieder, Eliza Hamrick and Senator Jessie Danielson. Their leadership, encouragement and unwavering support gave this bill and our union the momentum we needed.”
“Representative Lieder has been an incredible champion — not just for this bill, but for sheet metal workers across Colorado,” he added. “Her advocacy, rooted in her experience as a labor leader with CWA, continues to make a real impact.”
The bill directs the governor to use remaining Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds to assist school districts in finding certified contractors and writing grants to access federal funding, and instructs the state Department of Labor and Employment to create a list of certified HVAC contractors schools can hire from.
“There are many qualified HVAC contractors across Colorado, and this legislation ensures that when schools update their heating and cooling systems, they meet high standards for safety, efficiency and quality,” said Colorado State Rep. Lieder in a post-session statement. “This law is good for workers and small businesses because it helps them secure HVAC maintenance contracts while creating safer air to breathe for Colorado students and educators.”
Whether it’s indoor air quality, offsite fabrication or other sheet metal work, SMART members and high-road signatory contractors miss out on jobs when bad-faith employers take advantage of loopholes to win bids on work such as HVAC in public schools. For that reason, Alvino explained, the enshrining of SMART HVAC standards into state law is a big win for members.
“The certified contractor list created through this bill guarantees that those who pay prevailing wages and participate in registered apprenticeship programs are eligible. It’s a huge step forward for ensuring quality work and supporting skilled local labor,” Alvino explained.
Plus, when combined with local bond measures, the legislation puts Local 9 in a strong position to partner with school districts, helping them leverage matching funds at both the state and federal level to improve their facilities.
“This legislation wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication of our members, the courage of our state leaders and the tireless advocacy from labor and community partners,” Alvino concluded. “Thanks to their efforts, students and educators across Colorado will benefit from cleaner, healthier air, and workers will have more access to good-paying, meaningful jobs that make a real impact.”
Production workers in Oregon will soon have a pathway to better training and more job opportunities thanks to Local 16’s new state-registered production apprenticeship program, a long-gestating idea that will help workers in the manufacturing sector for years to come.
The new program will be a two-year apprenticeship, with five weeks of intensive daytime training each year, administered by the Local 16 JATC.
“We saw a need for an apprenticeship for our production shops,” said Local 16 Regional Manager Brian Noble. “We wanted to get training for members so they could always improve themselves and be more qualified and skilled for signatory contractors.”
Local 16 Regional Representative Darrin Boyce explained that Local 16 had an extraordinarily strong production membership in the 1980s, but thanks in part to the trade policies of President Ronald Reagan, he argued, and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) later on, the manufacturing sector was decimated, leading to decline. In addition, until a few years ago, Local 16 representation for production workers was siloed off from that of the building trades, with different officers assigned to different shops.
“You don’t have the shared resources, you’re not bouncing ideas off of each other,” Boyce said. “So [Noble] decided to break up [that siloing].”
It didn’t take long for elected officers to realize that many of the issues production workers raised during bargaining could be addressed through formalized training that spoke to members’ needs — in other words, a state-registered program that helped workers achieve guaranteed wage rates, assisted contractors with securing work opportunities and helped SMART members build their skills.
Noble noted that a state-registered program that meets Oregon’s established labor standards is especially important right now. By going through the apprenticeship program, Local 16 production workers and contractors may be able to secure work in the burgeoning offshore wind industry.
“In Oregon, we have labor standards set up for any of the offshore wind platforms, and the development for offshore wind, [that include] apprenticeship requirements,” he said.
Coming up with a state-registered production apprenticeship program was one thing. Creating it was another.
“Some of the challenges were getting our contractors on board with adding contributions in their contracts to the JATC,” Noble said. In other words, employers who previously hadn’t provided funding for training needed to see that there would be bang for their buck.
“We ended up bringing the contractors to the table to be like, ‘hey, what kind of training would you guys want?’” said Boyce. “And so really what we’re looking at is having the last year [of the apprenticeship program] being tailored to each shop.”
Local 16 also needed to work with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries to ensure the program met all the criteria to be state registered and to structure the apprenticeship in a way that benefited members. Because production workers have different daily schedules and demands compared with building trades members, making evening instruction a more difficult task, Local 16 designed the production apprenticeship to not only meet the high standards set for state-registered apprenticeship programs, but also to allow members to collect unemployment pay while they attend the five-week course. (Oregon law allows apprentices in state-registered programs to do so, Boyce said.)
The apprenticeship program is becoming reality. Now, Noble and Boyce think it could benefit Local 16 members for the long term — whether from offshore wind project work, day-to-day job satisfaction, Local 16’s market share or all of the above.
“The direct benefit for members is a pathway to that higher-wage position in the facilities they work in, with a guaranteed timeline and a direct path that isn’t just at the whim of the contractor,” Noble said. “I also think it’s an opportunity for us to organize more production facilities.”
“We know why union is better, and that is the quality,” added Boyce. “You’re not going to have a high turnover rate. You’re going to have lifelong workers, dedicated, that are going to be making the company a lot of money. And one of the ways to show them that is with a good, state-registered apprenticeship program where we have qualified people and we’re giving them the training that specifically addresses their needs.”
