Fourth District International Representative Jon Rosenberger, described by colleagues as having a special knack for forming meaningful professional and personal relationships, has been appointed by International President Kenneth W. Cooper as director of business development, effective Sept. 1.

Rosenberger, a member of Cumberland, Md., Local 307, replaces Ray Kasmark, who retired.

"You have to develop relationships to get more business, and Jon's a natural," said Kasmark, who was the union's first business development director. "He has a mind for business and such a disarming personality. I'm really pleased he's taking over."

After Rosenberger graduated from Cumberland's Allegany High School, he got a job with a nonunion electrical contractor, but by 1990, he realized that nonunion work didn't suit him.

"I got sick and tired of being sick and tired," Rosenberger said. "So, one day I walked into the Local 307 union hall and met a man named Brian Malloy," who was then a Local 307 assistant business manager. "Best thing I ever did."

Rosenberger was soon initiated into the local, whose jurisdiction covers the three counties of Western Maryland plus West Virginia's eastern panhandle. After he topped out of his apprenticeship, he ran successfully for the first of two stints as Local 307's recording secretary. Additionally, he served on the local's volunteer organizing committee, "getting our members engaged and bringing the rank-and-file together," he said.

Rosenberger continued to work as a journeyman wireman, occasionally as a foreman, and for a few years as a traveler, picking up gigs with, among others, Pittsburgh Local 5 and Washington, D.C., Local 26. He even worked with Mansfield, Ohio, Local 688, where he was introduced to Cooper, then the local's business manager.

Around the turn of the 21st century, Rosenberger took root in Cumberland and took over as Local 307's organizer after the previous one retired. He also worked his way onto a few jobsites as a salt, helping workers gain voluntary recognition of the IBEW as their bargaining representative.

In 2007, Rosenberger was again elected as Local 307's recording secretary. He served in that role until 2010, when he was appointed by International President Edwin D. Hill to serve as organizing coordinator for Maryland; Virginia; and Washington, D.C.

"I met some of the coolest people as an organizer, talking to people and bringing in folks who are still members today," Rosenberger said. He also served the Central Maryland Central Labor Council as recording secretary and eventually president.

In 2015, at the request of Cooper — who was by then the international vice president for the Fourth District — Hill assigned Rosenberger to serve the district as an international representative for construction and maintenance business development. Rosenberger worked first for Cooper and then Malloy, who in 2017 was appointed the district's international vice president when Cooper became international secretary-treasurer. Sadly, lung cancer claimed Malloy's life just three years later.

"I've known Jon for over 30 years, but he's pretty much been a constant in my life since my dad died," said Malloy's daughter, Breana, a Fourth District international representative. "He's a consistent and understanding friend."

Rosenberger also has a keen sense of humor, Malloy said. "He brings an appropriate amount of levity to every situation. He can talk to anybody. He fits in wherever you put him."

Kasmark agreed. "We spent a lot of time together," he said. "Working in the field all day with somebody like Jon, you'll laugh all day, but you'll also get a ton of work done."

Some recent work has included a state-by-state project that Rosenberger helped lead to build relationships with renewable energy developers, after an analysis showed room for improvement in the IBEW's onshore wind and solar market share figures.

"We put together a good team in the Fourth District," said Rosenberger, who ought to understand teamwork: In his spare time, he has served as a youth sports coach, as well as president of the Cumberland-based Tri-State Area Pee Wee Football League.

"Jon's invaluable contributions to our district will be deeply missed, yet I look forward to the positive impact he will bring to all IBEW members as he takes the business development helm," said Gina Cooper, who replaced Brian Malloy as Fourth District international vice president. "This promotion for Jon is not just a reward for his hard work; it's a recognition of his invaluable contributions and an investment in his limitless potential."

As Rosenberger moves into his new role, he plans to ride the wave of upcoming projects. "I want to get better dialed in on relationships and make as many connections as possible," he said. "Get everybody in on it."

He also wants to keep going with what his predecessor Kasmark put in place. "I had a front-row seat to watch Ray build the things he built," he said. "Ray left us a good foundation with the Membership Development and Government Affairs departments to expand our market share."

Rosenberger's family includes his wife, Terri, three children and six grandchildren. He notes proudly that his nephew Justin works as a Local 307 journeyman wireman at the Mount Storm power generation plant in Grant County, W.Va.

The officers and staff of the IBEW wish Brother Rosenberger nothing but the best as he takes on his next career challenge.

After a career spanning 47 years and every corner of the nation, Ninth District International Representative David Jones retired effective Sept. 1.

Brother Jones was born on North Carolina's coastal plain, midway between the ocean and Raleigh, in Kinston.

His father, George, was organized into Wilmington, N.C., Local 495 in 1963, when David was 5 years old. His father had been working nonunion at the chemical plant. Joining the IBEW was transformational for the family. "It gave us opportunities we couldn't have even dreamed of," Jones said. "The IBEW changed my life. It's been my life."

Just 11 days after graduating high school in 1977, Jones made the IBEW his own, joining the apprenticeship. His timing could have been better.

"Topping out in 1981, I couldn't buy a job," he said.

But he could buy a travel trailer, and a life in the trade became a life on the road for the next 12 years.

Two years in, he got married, and his wife, Leslie, joined his traveling life.

By the time his son Aaron was born, they were living in a 40-foot, two-bedroom home, a refuge on the inside no matter where the outside happened to be.

He did long calls where he wanted to stick, at nuclear plants and auto plants, and innumerable short calls where he did not.

"I stayed in Utah just long enough to get the money to get out," he said, laughing.

Jones' father had traveled some when David was young, and even took David and the rest of his family along once. But there was always a home, and it wasn't on wheels, and it was back in North Carolina.

It may surprise some people to see those words together: family and traveler. Journeymen who journey are crucial to the success of the IBEW to the big jobs and absolutely critical to contractors who come into a 350-member local with a three-year, 1,200-person job.

Travelers were his people.

"This was our family for years, and these are some great mechanics and some really good people," Jones said.

"The brothers and sisters of the IBEW have always been my closest family."

For Aaron, who went to three kindergartens and two first grades, the travelers were the constant, the roving small town of his youth.

Aaron is now a third-generation wireman, former JATC instructor and the national coordinator of messaging and marketing in the Membership Development Department.

"He's done some amazing things I never would have thought of because I'm old," Jones said. "I wish his grandfather could see his rise."

Between 1986 and 1993, Jones and family spiraled through Las Vegas at least a half-dozen times.

Al Davis, international representative in the CIR, Bylaws and Appeals Department, said he first met Jones when he was an apprentice and Jones was traveling to a casino build in Laughlin. But he heard about Jones before he met him.

"I was on the job and heard people saying he was coming the day before he showed up. I didn't know who the hell he was. But the job knew," Davis said.

He quickly learned how you build a reputation that precedes you.

"He is a craftsman. He knew the bylaws, knew the working agreement front to back, and his opinion carried weight even when he didn't have that local card," Davis said.

He was made a steward. After years of invitations, Las Vegas Local 357 Business Manager Sam Darby finally convinced him to stay in 1993.

He accepted. In 1995, Jones was elected vice chairman of the local's Unit 1, representing all the inside wireman, taking over from Davis.

"I felt welcome," Jones said.

At 357, he came under the wing of the man he calls his mentor, Jesse "T-Bone" Bradley. Bradley asked him to be his assistant business manager in 1998, giving him the entire Strip and downtown to watch over.

When T-Bone didn't run again in 2001, Bradley once again lifted Jones up.

"It wasn't that I wanted to be business manager. I was content to be in my position. I liked it. But when you get asked by someone you respect, you step up," he said. "And we had a lot of potential."

Not, Jones stresses, because there was work undone, but because of how well they were prepared for what was coming: a tidal wave of development that saw the city's population grow by nearly half in 10 years.

The local grew from 2,300 members to 4,000 on Jones' watch. It built a new hall, which Davis called "one of the finest houses of labor in the country."

Projects in Las Vegas went from large to massive.

The real challenge, he said, was protecting all the other work. Hundreds of new members came pouring through the doors, and contractors — most notably, Sun City Electric — were desperate for workers.

Jones greeted them with a handshake, a contract and a commitment that they would all do better together.

In 2008, the local had 2,500 travelers on top of the 4,000 members and banked 1 million man-hours every month.

After three elections, and with the wave of development long since swallowed by the Great Recession, Jones accepted an offer from International President Edwin D. Hill to come on staff in the Ninth District.

He could stay in Las Vegas and service his old local but pass the baton to the next generation. He could also leverage the relationships and experience he developed locking down the convention business in Las Vegas and bring it to the rest of the Ninth District and, later, the whole country.

"Electrical is a huge part of the displays — power drops, power distribution, under-carpet infrastructure and lights, putting up LED screens, video walls — it was 15% of our work in slow years," Jones said. "The profit margins are huge, and there is always another union that wants that work."

His biggest success, he said, was in Los Angeles, where Local 11 "deserves credit for stepping up to the task," but he helped make significant advances in San Diego and Orange County, Calif., too.

Jones was also deeply involved in Nevada politics and became a close friend and ally to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

When Jones moved to the district office, he asked Davis to take the business manager job.

"I never thought I could do a better job than him," Davis said. "He was a leader because his word meant something. For him, it was always brotherhood in action and brotherhood first."

Please join us in wishing Brother Jones and Leslie a long, happy and healthy retirement.

Retired Sixth District International Representative Dick Crawshaw, a successful IBEW organizer who once considered a career in professional baseball, died on Sept. 1. He was 86.

Born in the Indianapolis suburb of Beech Grove, Crawshaw played in local fast-pitch softball leagues in his youth. When he was 16, his skills caught the attention of a scout for what was then the Brooklyn Dodgers. In his obituary, Crawshaw's family recalled that his mother said he was too young for a baseball career. So instead, after high school, Crawshaw served in the U.S. Army's Signal Corps, attended Purdue University, and entered the workforce as a pipefitter for Citizens Gas and Coke (now Citizens Energy Group).

Crawshaw became a member of the IBEW nearly a decade later. In 1973, representatives of the Sixth District and the IBEW's new Organizing Department completed a successful campaign to bring him and nearly 900 other members of the Citizens Gas bargaining unit into the union and the new Indianapolis Local 1400.

Crawshaw's chairmanship of the fledgling local's negotiations committee and his work on the bylaws committee that same year helped lead to his election as Local 1400's first business manager, a role he held until 1980. He also served as a member of the Indiana IBEW State Conference Executive Board.

His labor leadership extended also beyond the Brotherhood, including service on the Indianapolis Mayor's Advisory Committee and the Indiana University Labor Advisory Board, as well as lobbying on behalf of the Indiana State AFL-CIO.

In 1980, International President Charles H. Pillard appointed Crawshaw as an international representative, assigning him first to work in the International Office's Organizing Department and then the Special Projects Department.

Crawshaw's appointment at the request of Mike Lucas, the Organizing Department's first director, who had acknowledged Crawshaw's crucial work in the Citizens Gas campaign and recommended that he run for business manager of Local 1400.

"I thought he was one of our best business managers," Lucas said. "He was well thought of by Sixth District International Vice President Tom Malone."

Working as a field organizer, Crawshaw played a key part in numerous organizing drives, including a 1998 campaign to unionize workers at Baltimore Gas and Electric. Though it was unsuccessful, this second BGE effort helped bring the IBEW much closer to a win than the first go-round two years before, and the lessons learned in 1998 helped guide the union through two more tries — in 2000 and 2010 — before success was achieved at last in 2017.

"Richard was always serious," Lucas said. "He did his homework."

William Eads, a retired Eleventh District international vice president, worked with Crawshaw in the Special Projects Department. One campaign that came to Eads' mind was an attempt to organize workers at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Mo.

"We always got the job done," Eads said. "Dick was a hard worker. He did a good job for the IBEW."

When Crawshaw retired in 2000, he spent his well-earned free time swimming, playing golf and traveling with his family in the Indianapolis suburb of Greenwood. He also was a member of Greenwood Masonic Lodge No. 514.

Crawshaw was preceded in death by his wife of 45 years, Betty, in 2004. He is survived by his second wife, Bonnie, as well as four children, 11 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

The officers and staff of the IBEW extend their sincerest condolences to Crawshaw's family during this difficult time.