Jennifer Gray has been appointed director of the Civic and Community Engagement Department, bringing extensive organizing experience to a department ripe with opportunity as the IBEW seeks to expand its ranks among women, people of color and young workers.

"We have to keep opening up the pool of who we recruit," said Gray, who served as the Membership Development Department's director of professional and industrial organizing prior to her appointment on Nov. 6. "And the groups that we focus on in CCE are a great catalyst for that."

Gray said a top priority is to organize around the IBEW's political gains like the passage of major legislation including the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, as well as the union's close relationship with the Biden administration.

"The president isn't afraid to say 'union,' and he's more than happy to say 'IBEW,'" she said. "That's only good for us."

Gray said "the time is now" to capitalize on recent momentum for workers in North America, pointing to high-profile bargaining wins and the most positive public sentiment for unions in decades.

"It hasn't been this way for unions in the entire time that I've been a member," she said. "People are seeing the strength in unions, and that puts us in a great position."

A member of Vacaville, Calif., Local 1245, Gray was hired at Pacific Gas and Electric in 2006 and quickly became active in the local, becoming one of the youngest shop stewards and unit recorders for her Sacramento clerical unit.

The local's leadership soon recognized her enthusiasm and potential, sending her to the AFL-CIO's inaugural Next Up Young Workers Summit and out to work on various campaigns, including a statewide ballot initiative. In 2012, the California Federation of Labor named her Young Trade Unionist of the Year. She also helped start Local 1245's Electrical Workers Minority Caucus chapter and counts the Coalition of Labor Union Women as one of her earliest exposures to the AFL-CIO and the broader labor movement.

In 2011, Gray attended the IBEW International Convention in Vancouver, representing the state of California, where a resolution on young worker involvement was introduced that eventually led to RENEW/NextGen .

"I was part of something larger than just my cubicle, or my job or my local," she said. "I realized that I was part of an organization with the power to fight for me every day. I look forward to doing that for others."

The Northern California native also represented the Ninth District on the RENEW advisory council and served as assistant business manager at Local 1245 before being appointed to be an international representative in the Membership Development Department in 2018.

Gray said she looks forward to supporting the work of the labor movement's different constituency groups like retirees, LGBTQ+ workers and veterans, and to carrying out the mission of the EWMC and the IBEW's affinity committees like RENEW/NextGen and the International Women's Committee.

"It's very empowering to be able to spark the interest of these members," she said. "I'm excited and honored to get back to this work. It's like coming full circle."

Jammi Ouellette, who's known Gray since 2006 when they both started at PG&E and is now executive assistant to the international president, said Gray is in a good position to replicate what she accomplished at the local level.

"I think it's really exciting for her to do this next step, and I expect to see great things," Ouellette said.

Ouellette also noted that Gray, who she described as "driven" and "very detail-oriented," has a strong organizational understanding of the IBEW, which will serve her well.

"Half of being part of a large organization is understanding the structure, and she's a master at that," Ouellette said. "She's bringing some real, tangible tools with her."

Gray said she wants to engage local unions as much as possible.

"We need to share the value of being an IBEW member," she said. "And who better to talk to groups like women and young workers and people of color than other IBEW members who share those identities?"

Joe DiMichele, a key figure in numerous IBEW organizing campaigns during the last decade, has been appointed professional and industrial director in the Membership Development Department.

Brother DiMichele [pronounced De-MICHAEL] has been an IBEW member since 2014, when he was hired as a Sixth District field organizer and joined Rockford, Ill., Local 364.

But he learned the value of union membership in perhaps the best way possible: by working a series of nonunion jobs for the previous 16 years, including as an electrician.

"I know what it's like to walk on eggshells every day," DiMichele said. "I know what it's like to be subjected to unsafe working conditions and if I don't do the work, I'll be terminated and they'll find someone else."

Born in Chicago, DiMichele grew up in suburban Hanover Park, Ill. He took a job as a tire buster for Goodyear while still attending high school and continued to work there after graduating in 1996.

Two years later, on the advice of a friend already working for the company, he took a job working for a nonunion contractor building new homes.

He had to learn quickly. The foreman and journeyman electrician quit on DiMichele's first day on the job.

"The company owner came out and said, 'You guys either need to figure out what you're doing and learn it, or I'm bringing in contractors,'" he said. "So we did. We read the code book. I learned how to bend conduit, and I can proudly say we passed our inspection first round."

DiMichele looks back on that accomplishment proudly. But in the moment, he had a young daughter to support and felt like he didn't have a choice.

"I had just left a job at Goodyear that I had all through high school to do this," he said. "Now I could be jobless with a kid."

DiMichele continued to work construction, both residential and commercial, until the Great Recession in 2008. He worked a variety of jobs after that, including as a truck driver and a construction and maintenance technician on cell towers.

In 2012, he took a job with Nippon Sharyo — a major rolling stock manufacturer based in Japan — at its new facility in Rochelle, Ill.

It turned into a life-changing experience, although not quite the way DiMichele expected.

"I was watching the way they were talking to people and treating them and thought, 'This is worse than [the notoriously anti-union] cell tower companies,'" DiMichele said. "You were not a human being to them. You were a number."

DiMichele was particularly upset when a U.S. Air Force veteran working for Nippon Sharyo was targeted by a supervisor with no experience in the industry and subsequently fired. The fired employee was later admitted to a Veterans Administration hospital after suffering a mental breakdown. [He is now doing much better.]

So DiMichele reached out to Chicago Local 134, which put him in touch with Sixth District Regional Organizing Coordinator Lynn Arwood. He agreed to lead the volunteer organizing committee at the facility.

Arwood said she was impressed by DiMichele from the moment they met.

"He stepped forward to make changes at the workplace because of his concern for the other workers," she said. "He never really brought up issues that affected him. It was the other workers that were being treated poorly. That really hit home for him."

The Nippon Sharyo organizing drive fell short due to a massive disinformation campaign by the company, which also found fraudulent reasons to fire some employees who were active in the drive. The workers never gained union recognition, and the company closed the facility in 2018 due to a lack of orders.

DiMichele left Nippon Sharyo in 2014. IBEW leaders were impressed enough to offer a spot as a Sixth District field organizer not long after.

DiMichele said it wasn't an easy decision. He mulled it over for three days.

He accepted in the end, and he's glad he did. He traveled across the country, assisting on successful campaigns at DirecTV, Electrolux and BGE. He was named a Sixth District lead organizer in July 2016 and moved to the International Office in Washington, D.C., in August 2022, when he was appointed as a P&I international representative.

"He's always all in," Arwood said. "The most important thing in a lead organizer is representing the IBEW well. They're honest. They show integrity and are committed to those workers. We're holding their lives in our hands because we're trying to organize them. Joe understood that."

DiMichele said he's assuming his position at a good time following the passage of several pieces of federal legislation — most notably the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — that will allow American manufacturing to grow after decades of jobs being sent overseas.

"The work is ours to lose," he said. "We'll be out there making contacts, knocking on doors and going out looking for contracts."

DiMichele has three daughters — Kayleigh, Madelyn and Sarah — and one grandson, Cade. He and his wife, Melissa, live in Arlington, Va.

"I'm honored to be in this position," said DiMichele, who calls Arwood his mentor. "Every time I was appointed to something, I never thought in a million years something like this could happen to me. I'm grateful."

The officers and staff congratulate Brother DiMichele on his appointment and wish him much success in his new position.