RETIRED — Gina Cooper, the first woman to serve as an international vice president, retired April 1 after years of innovations and growth under her leadership in the Fourth District.
“No one has ever done it better,” said Austin Keyser, who was appointed as Cooper’s successor. “Gina’s ability to bring labor and management together across industries — construction, utility, line clearance — has been impressive and critical to our success in the Fourth District.”
Appointed by then-International President Lonnie R. Stephenson after the death of her predecessor, Brian Malloy, Cooper was sworn in Sept. 1, 2020, and elected at the 40th IBEW Convention in May 2022.
She also served the past four years on the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO alongside federation President Liz Shuler, an IBEW sister from Portland, Ore., Local 125.
“Gina has left an indelible legacy on our union, having worked her way up through the ranks as an organizer, to her glass-ceiling breaking leadership as international vice president,” Shuler said.
“She’s inspired me and countless activists with her innovative approaches to growing membership, fighting for good union jobs and the right to safe workplaces and a secure retirement. We are forever grateful for her groundbreaking leadership.”
Cooper’s innovations, many of which revolve around her passion for organizing, include an assertive strategy to organize manufacturing workers and electric cooperatives, and networking with employers to create IBEW jobs.
“After 42 years of service to the IBEW, I feel like I’m leaving the IBEW better than I found it, and that’s the goal,” Cooper said. “The fighting Fourth District — that’s our mantra, we fight for our work — has absolutely prospered, and I’m so happy about that, but the credit goes to the amazing leadership of the local unions in the Fourth District and my staff. They are second to none. And I have every confidence that Brother Keyser will lead with distinction and continue our forward momentum.”
Cooper grew up in Nevada, where her father was a union plumber and her two brothers became union sheet metal workers. Her mother was a business agent and organizer for Locals 465 and 569 and later office manager for Local 357. As a young woman, Cooper joined the staff as a clerk.
“I really wanted to go through the apprenticeship, but back then, I was discouraged from doing it because I was a girl,” she said. “I was told that I made a greater impact in the office, so I worked my way up to office manager, and then the local organizer had an organizing assignment for me, and I was hooked. From that day on, organizing was all I wanted to do. I loved it.”
“No one has ever done it better. Gina’s ability to bring labor and management together across industries … has been impressive and critical to our success in the Fourth District.”
– Fourth District International Vice President Austin Keyser
Today, she is thrilled to see so many women thriving as IBEW electricians.
“We’ve come a long way, and I love it,” Cooper said. “When we were at the Women’s Conference and we had our Fourth District caucus, every single woman who was in the caucus was a foreman, a general foreman, a steward or an officer of their local union.”
Cooper’s IBEW career took her from locals in Las Vegas and California to IBEW headquarters in Washington, D.C., to the Fourth District as an international representative and ultimately as its leader.
In 1997, while attending an IBEW conference, Cooper met the then-business manager of Mansfield, Ohio, Local 688 and her future husband: International President Kenneth W. Cooper. After years of friendship and dating, he left his leadership position to join her at Local 396 as an assistant business manager.
A few years later, both moved to the International Office in Washington, D.C. — but not exactly at the same time.
“I like to remind him I have seniority,” Cooper said with a laugh. “I came on staff in November 2005, and he came on in March 2006.”
After working in the Telecommunications and Government Employees departments, she became the first woman to serve as director of professional and industrial organizing for Membership Development, where she managed 50 field organizers and assisted with scores of organizing drives.
But her single biggest victory came after moving to the Fourth District as an international representative in 2015.
Ending two decades of failed attempts to organize Baltimore Gas and Electric workers, Cooper was a key part of the team that finally succeeded in 2017. The win brought 1,400 BGE employees into the IBEW and created Baltimore Local 410.
Cooper was one of the two lead negotiators who bargained the workers’ first contract, reaching agreement in 2019.
Between those kinds of successes and rave reviews from officers of local unions that Cooper serviced, Stephenson decided she was the ideal person to take over the Fourth District after Malloy’s death.
“While I’m proud to appoint our first female vice president, it’s not the reason I chose Gina for this role,” he said at the time. “It’s because she is eminently qualified.”
Her initiatives include meticulous organizing plans for cooperatives, outside construction and the manufacturing sector, where the Fourth District team identified and assessed 371 plants in the district, which covers Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
“As of right now, we have identified 15,626 workers that we believe would be part of our bargaining units, and of that we’ve started active campaigns at four locations,” Cooper said. “We want manufacturing workers to know that the IBEW is the place for them.”
She’s also pleased with the success of industry nights at the district’s annual progress meetings and the Politics, Activism, Livelihood (PAL) training program that was created in the district to help members understand why the union is involved in politics and how politics affect their livelihood. That program is now a national program.
Throughout it all, her admirers say, Cooper unfailingly puts members first.
“What’s most impressive is Gina’s commitment to making decisions based solely on what’s best for members,” said Danielle Eckert, who heads Government Affairs as an assistant to the international president. “Her focus on members informed every high standard she set and resulted in incredible progress.”
Breana Malloy, a Fourth District international representative and daughter of Brian Malloy, said, “My dad always said, ‘It’s all about the members,’ and Gina embodies that sentiment in all that she does.
“Her accomplishments alone are evidence of that, but it’s undeniable after witnessing the leadership, strategic vision and work ethic she brings to work every day,” Malloy said. “The Fourth District is in a great position because of her, and we’re poised to build upon her many successes.”
With a close, blended family of five grown children between her and President Cooper — three daughters and two sons who live in four states — she is looking forward to spending more time with them and with her husband in retirement.
“Kenny’s job and my job, they’re both really high pressure,” Cooper said. “We don’t get to see each other a lot — he’ll be coming back into town, and I’ll be taking a plane out. We have date night at IBEW conferences.”
Eventually she’d like to have a couple of horses, some miniature donkeys and a cow, she said, but “my biggest goal right now is to support Kenny until he’s ready to retire.”
Whatever challenges are ahead for the IBEW, Cooper believes the future is bright.
“The Fourth District is truly a family — sometimes a dysfunctional family — but family nonetheless,” she said. “We always have each other’s backs, work together and never lose sight of what matters most, our family, our members and our work.”
